A Reading and Q&A with Author, Leila Philip
Moderated by Dr. Joshua Ginsberg, President
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Free, reservations recommended

“…a triumph of popular nature writing.” — Publisher’s Weekly STARRED Review

“Lyrically written, meticulously observed and exhaustively researched, BEAVERLAND is going to break your heart… and then heal it with compassion, beauty and wonder.” — Sy Montgomery, New York Times Bestselling author 

A Barnes & Nobles Best Book of 2022

Join us for the launch event of Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America (Grand Central Publishing 2022) by award-winning writer Leila Philip. Beaverland is a revelatory dive into the world of the beaver: the wonderfully weird rodent that has shaped American history in often surprising ways — and may save its ecological future.

Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on our nation’s early economy and feverish western expansion – creating America’s first corporations and multi-millionaires. What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation success stories of the twentieth century.

Leila Philip is the author of award-winning books of narrative nonfiction that chronicle diverse, personal journeys. In The Road Through Miyama, Leila, already fluent in Japanese and a potter, traveled to Japan to apprentice to a master potter in southern Kyushu.  A Family Place: A Hudson Valley Farm, Three Centuries, Five Wars, One Family, took her much closer to home (literally), and weaves the history of the Hudson Valley farm where she spent her childhood with a revealing account of what’s involved in cultivating orchards.  A Guggenheim Fellow, Leila has written for the Boston Globe and is a professor in the English Department at the College of the Holy Cross. Follow Leila as she scouts for beavers on the Hudson River (and elsewhere) @leilaphilip_author

Joshua Ginsberg’s career in ecology and conservation science spans 35 years and has global reach. Ginsberg is on the boards of the Ocean Foundation, the Open Space Institute, TRAFFIC, the Salisbury Forum, the Foundation for Community Health, and served for 15 years as a founding board member of the Pure Earth/Blacksmith Institute.

• Hudson Hall’s programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Governor and the New York Legislature.