"The Headwaters" is an ambitious, wide-ranging history that encompasses early settlement; forest development and exploitation; farm development; social, cultural, and personal history; and a perspective of ecologic attributes of Wisconsin's northern counties. The book is complete as a social history, a geologic and ecological study, a cultural history, and as a perspective of present-day ecological and social concerns. The authors' strongest points are in the descriptions of landscape features and explication of ecological and biological concerns. "The Headwaters" is a book that will be read for pleasure, for information on rural culture and land conservation and even for inspiration. The book will be a welcome addition to our knowledge not just of the state, but of ourselves and our place in the Middle West.