A Natural History of Quiet Waters: Swamps and Wetlands of the Mid-Atlantic Coast

Although swamps today are recognized as one of the richest and most prolific natural systems on Earth, they have long held a mysterious and tenuous place in America’s history and culture. Ernest Hemingway equated them with madness and death in "Big Two-hearted River." We have images of Humphrey Bogart covered with leeches while slogging through a swamp in the film The African Queen. In our culture, swamps have been associated with mystery and evil, and we spent generations draining, filling...