The Lost Tapes of Ian McHarg

Experience the wisdom of this life-long environmental activist as he clarifies his vision with unprecendented articulateness, brutal honesty, and humor in his own booming voice.

Attention ecologists, environmentalists, and the intellectually curious: we now have available the immortal voice of the legendary landscape architect, Ian McHarg. A self-styled “crypto-pseudo-quasi-scientist,” McHarg presents in his inimitable Scots accent his unique theory of energy and matter processes inclusive of “human needs and desires” in a finite universe. Listen as he discusses the interdisciplinary theory that astonished good scientists including the director of Brookhaven National laboratory. A gift to future generations, this CD, made from rare tapes lost until now, presents McHarg waxing profound on a thermodynamic definition of creativity as matter and energy raised to higher levels of order; evolution both physical and biological (plants, animals, and microorganisms) in the context of nature; and the criteria and attributes of the creative process (e.g., does a given region move from randomness to dynamic equilibrium, or is it retrogressive and therefore heading toward pathology?). McHarg argues that L. J. Henderson’s concept of “fitness of the environment,” although nearly unknown, is as important as Sir Charles Darwin’s idea of “fitness of the organism.”

About the Authors

Ian McHarg

Ian McHarg founded the department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and has become identified as founder of ecological planning and design. He has written numerous articles and professional reports, but is best known for the classic, Design with Nature, a finalist for the National Book Award in 1969. He was awarded the National Medal of Art from President Bush in 1992. He lives with his wife and two sons in Pennsylvania. ...

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Lynn Margulis

Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, received the 1999 National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton. She has been a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences since 1983 and of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences since 1997. Author, editor, or coauthor of chapters in more than forty books, she has published or been profiled in many journals, magazines, and books, among them Natural History, Science, Nature, New England Watershed, Scientific American, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Firsts, and The Scientific 100. She ...

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