The Best and Worst Country in the World

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From its earliest days, the Virginia landscape has eliciteddramatically contradictory descriptions. The sixteenth-century poet Michael Draytonexalted the land as "earth's onely paradise, " while John Smith, in his reports toEngland, summarized the area around Jamestown as "a miserie, a ruine, a death, ahell."Drawing upon both familiar history and lesser-known materialfrom deep geological time through the end of the seventeenth century, Stephen Adamsfocuses on both the physical changes to the land over time and the changes in theway people viewed Virginia. The Best and Worst Country in the World reaches wellbeyond previous accounts of early American views of the land with the inclusion offascinating and important pre-1700 sources, Native American perceptions, andprehuman geography and geology. A blend of history, literature, geology, geography, and natural history, enriched by illustrations ranging from adinosaur footprint to John Smith's famous "Map of Virginia, " Adams's work offers anecocritical exploration of the varied preconceptions that have shaped and coloredthe human relationship with "the best and worst country in the world"--the earlyVirginia landscape.