• "Ecological restoration appears to most of us as a novel, churning, exuberant practice in search of a solution to the 20th century. Marc Hall exposes the traditions underlying restoration that extend much farther back and are culturally crossed. For North American readers it is good to be reminded that restoration did not begin as an idea or practice only in the 1930s American Midwest (no matter how important these developments were). With this terrific book Marc Hall is emerging as the historian laureate of the restoration movement.."
—Eric Higgs, former chair for Society of Ecological Restoration International

• "Although many people tend to think of ecological restoration as a very recent development in environmentalism, it in fact has much deeper roots than they realize. This pioneering study is thus an invaluable contribution not just to comparative environmental history, but to contemporary restoration efforts as well."
—William Cronon, editor of Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature

• "A landmark in environmental history, Earth Repair offers major new insights into conservation ideas and practices derived from comparative analysis in the Old World and the New World, including sophisticated vignettes of efforts to curb disasters and reform land management in the Alps and the Rockies. This wonderfully written book also shows how the contrasts noted by Americans and Italians abroad now reaffirmed, now reshaped, national views on why and how to conserve."
—David Lowenthal, author of George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation