"In recent years scholars have begun to question the cultural values underlying how we view nature. Kevin Dann contributes to this debate by juxtaposing two radically different "Arcadian" experiments in the early twentieth century by Manhattanites seeking cultural renewal through contact with the natural world. Dann first looks at the initiatives of the American Museum of Natural History from 1910 to 1940 at Harriman State Park.

He argues that these were expressions of the early, "back-to-nature" movement whose underlying biological materialism, or "Naturalism," was integral to American popular culture of the time.".

"These activities are contrasted with social experiments at nearby Threefold Farm in Ramapo, New York, where anthroposophists - followers of Rudolf Steiner's "spiritual science" - developed a program of natural scientific research and education in opposition to Darwinism and its social applications as well as reductionist scientific methods. By challenging scientific "fact" with spiritual scientific descriptions, the Threefold Farm initiative offered Americans a new gospel of nature."--BOOK JACKET.