The Ground Beneath Us by Paul Bogard cc.2017, Little, Brown $27/$35 Canada 309 pages There’s a spot on this Earth where your family laid down roots. It’s almost magnetic. Just being there makes you feel connected, solid, as if your soul goes backward in time and forward to the future. And if we’re not careful, says Paul Bogard in his new book, The Ground Beneath Us, that future may be bleak. Think about the last time you spontaneously kicked off your shoes. Chances are, that was somewhere indoors – and, says Paul Bogard, that’s a shame. The earth beneath our feet is too interesting to avoid. It’s more than just a plowed furrow, a place to grow tomatoes or mud to keep the dog from. Dig in the dirt a few inches and you’ll find “far more microorganisms than there are people on Earth.” Loft “just a teaspoon,” and you’re holding “millions of species;” dig a few centimeters away and you’ll find totally different life. Scoop a little deeper, and the dirtitself changes. If you’re digging in London, go just 30 feet down and you’ll no longer see evidence of past human life. Now imagine you’re looking out an airplane window. It may come as a shock to see so much pavement: there’s “some 61,000 square miles of paved ground in the United States ”alone, and that amount grows every year. Says Bogard, it’s hard to find a place in the contiguous U.S. that’s more than 100 miles from pavement. Everywhere he traveled for this book, Bogard took off his shoes to feel the earth, and says our existence depends on soil (“some 97 percent of the food we eat comes from the ground”). Research shows that humans also need an overall connection with nature for our well-being. In Mexico City, Bogard learned one could go an entire childhood without touching grass. In Virginia, he saw historic sites being overtaken by buildings. He learned about farming in Iowa, grass in Minneapolis, fracking in Ohio, permafrost in Alaska and what the Nazis tried to hide at Treblinka. “It turns out,” he says, “that the soil – the living entity beneath our feet – is the most amazing world that we know almost nothing about.” Though there are a few times when you may cringe (author Paul Bogard is less-than-complimentary while in the Appalachians ), most of The Ground Beneath Us is pretty mind-blowing. Fact after convincing fact layers each page of this book – so many that there are times when you almost can’t comprehend what you’re reading. Bogard takes us from London to laboratory to lawn in a barefoot trip that can feel overpacked and over too quickly in any given locale. Even so, the sometimes- sprightly, sometimes- dismayed tone of his words will spur readers to find out more about history,agriculture and turf, and it will change the way you look at what you’ve tracked inside. For the science-minded, this book is a dream and conservationists will want to share, share, share. If you’re curious about what’s underfoot or under-pavement, The Ground Beneath Us will keep you rooted in your chair. Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 14,000 books. Readers with questions or comments may write to Terri in care of this publication. |
