“The fountainhead of the conservation movement” (Mumford). This is a comprehensive scientific account of humanity's enormous and often destructive impact on the physical world. Marsh warned of the dangers of the reckless misuse of land then endemic in the United States, using the ruined lands of the Mediterranean region as an example of America’s probable future, and called for a scientific program to restore the land. Reprint edited by David Lowenthal, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965. Reprint of the 1965 edition with a foreward by William Cronon and a new introduction by David Lowenthal, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. Digital facsimile of the 1864 edition from the Internet Archive at this link. Revised second edition retitled The earth as modified by human action (1874). Digital facsimile of the second edition from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.