Fen, Bog, and Swamp refreshes readers' memories on the value of peatlands.

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• peatland
• wetland
• marshes
• swamps

In a recent TV commercial, three people fight about whether or not they should have turned at a pond, which one of them insists is really a marsh. Let's not act like you're familiar with the term "marsh" the other person snaps. The third suggests that it "may be a bog."

Annie Proulx, the author, probably wouldn't be surprised by this conversation. Peatlands are wetlands that are rich in partially decayed material called peat, and while the different types of peatlands can be easily confused with one another, I can't help but think that the general public's lack of familiarity with peatland terminology stems from Western culture's long-standing dislike and underappreciation of wetlands.

Proulx aims to close the knowledge gap in Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis. She describes the three distinct kinds of peatland, namely fens, which rely on running water from rivers and streams, bogs, which are reliant on precipitation, and swamps, which may be identified by the presence of trees and bushes. While examples of all three ecosystems may be found around the globe, Proulx zeroes on on the dry land that has been in such high demand due to the expansion of agriculture in the previous several centuries in the northwest of Europe and the Americas. Wetlands were a headache for farmers and would-be developers due to their damp, muddy, and stinky conditions. More over half of the United States' wetlands were drained by settlers in the 1600s, and just 1% of Britain's fens are still standing today.

The effects of these losses have just become apparent lately. It's humiliating that we have to rediscover the value of these out-of-the-way locations, as Proulx puts it. One reason is because peatlands are very important to the environment because of the wide range of species they host. Also, some peatlands protect against erosion of shorelines and act as a buffer against storm surges (SN: 3/17/18, p. 20), while others store vast quantities of carbon dioxide. While ecology is discussed, the book avoids going into great detail. Instead, Proulx looks at these settings by focusing on how they affect humans.

Author of such works as The Shipping News and "Brokeback Mountain," Proulx uses research from the past, present, and future, as well as literature and archaeological discoveries, to bring fictional worlds to life. With examples like Shrek's swamp, where only an ogre would wish to reside, and The Neverending Story's Swamps of Sadness, she dispels the concept that wetland environments are inherently negative.

Proulx travels to the North Sea's muddy depths, which were once a mountainous region known as Doggerland, as far back as 20,000 years ago. Humans adapted to the rising seas and new fens by learning to catch and hunt eels and other aquatic life around the seventh century B.C. "Bog bodies," many of which are thought to be human sacrifices, have been preserved in the peat for thousands of years in Ireland; Proulx imagines torchlit ceremonies in which people were offered to the mud, a connection to the natural world that is difficult for many people in the modern era to comprehend. Wetlands were shown in Renaissance art, and words like "didder" from the British language were adopted into common use (the way a bog quivers when stepped on). Similarly to the writer Henry David Thoreau, Proulx discusses the beauty she saw as a youngster when exploring marshes in Connecticut and a swamp in Vermont. You can love a swamp, she adds.

The boundaries between fens, bogs, and swamps are not fixed and may change depending on the availability of water. In the novel, Proulx also moves quickly from one swamp to the next, as well as from one continent to another and from one century to the next. At times, Proulx veers off into a more didactic and meandering discussion of humankind's destructive tendencies in wetlands and nature more generally, vaguely revisiting elements of the climate issue that most readers interested in the environment are probably already aware with. The tales of "Yde Girl," a redheaded adolescent sacrificed to a bog, "zombie fires" in Arctic peatlands that burn underground, and the disappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker from southern U.S. wetlands for over a century fascinated and saddened me the most.