Wilderness and the American Mind: Fifth Edition PDF
Preview Wilderness and the American Mind: Fifth Edition
More praise for Wilderness and the American Mind "One of those rare works that combines exemplary scholarship and readability."—Washington Post Book World "This book is a mandatory prelude to any modern treatment of con- servation problems. It does not purport to tell us where we go from here. But it reports in telling fashion how we got where we are and the nature of the forces that have driven us pell-mell toward a leveling of the wilderness."—William O. Douglas, Natural History "Should be on every conservationist's bookshelf."—Living Wilderness "A masterly study of the wilderness mystique and the ambivalent American attitude toward the wilderness."—Pacific Historian "A classic, unique in its field. . . . Wilderness and the American Mind pro- vides a valuable service in reminding us that attitudes toward wilder- ness, like the wild lands themselves, are constantly changing." —William E. Shands, American Land Forum Magazine "The essential theme of the book is that a transformation has oc- curred in American thinking about wild places—from fear and ha- tred to appreciation and even reverence—but that such a change has not assured real protection of the remaining areas. . . . The book is both scholarly and readable. Much of the biographical information is interesting and the reader is likely to be surprised by the subtleties of American thinking about wilderness."—American Historical Review "Among recent books on the long history of man's attitudes toward his primeval setting, with primary focus on the attitudes of Americans, the eminent volume is Nash's."—American Quarterly '"Wilderness, in the final analysis, is a state of mind,' and the author critically describes man's attitudes toward a state of nature he feared, romanticized, felt he had to conquer and change, wished to preserve, used as a refuge from an unsatisfactory culture, and in most cases despoiled. The concepts are traced from the ancient symbol of the Garden of Eden to our present conservation controversies." —Books of the Southwest "Essential. . . . Nash provides a fair-minded synopsis of the thought of just about every American who has had something of substance to say on the subject."—Fred W. Kohlmeyer, Journal of Forest History "This book continues to provide an excellent overview of the sub- ject matter and in paperback makes a valuable textbook for the classroom."—Science, Technology & Society WILDERNESS AND THE AMERICAN MIND This page intentionally left blank Wilderness and the American Mind RODERICK FRAZIER NASH Fifth edition FOREWORD BY CHAR MILLER Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS New Haven and London First edition published in 1967. Fifth edition 2014. Preface and Epilogue copyright © 2014 by Yale University. Foreword copyright © 2014 by Char Miller. Previous editions copyright © 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2001 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949305 ISBN 978-0-300-19038-0 (pbk.) A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 Contents Foreword by Char Miller vii Preface to the Fifth Edition: Fifty Years in the Wilderness xvii Prologue: The Condition of Wilderness i 1. Old World Roots of Opinion 8 2. A Wilderness Condition 23 3. The Romantic Wilderness 44 4. TheAmericanWilderness 67 5. Henry David Thoreau: Philosopher 84 6. Preserve the Wilderness! 96 7. Wilderness Preserved 108 S.John Muir: Publicizer 122 9. The Wilderness Cult 141 10. Hetch Hetchy 161 11. Aldo Leopold: Prophet 182 i 2. Decisions for Permanence 200 i 3. Toward a Philosophy of Wilderness 238 14. Alaska 272 15. The Irony of Victory 316 16. The International Perspective 342 Epilogue to the Fifth Edition: Island Civilization 379 Bibliography 387 Index 393 This page intentionally left blank Foreword CHAR MILLER WILDERNESS is contested ground. As a physical reality, wild land has been mined, dammed, grazed, and harvested, as well as hiked, skied, and boated. These economic and recreational uses are vocif- erously defended and decried. As a cultural domain, wilderness is no less controversial. Those who have sought to preserve the natu- ralness of coastal, mountainous, or riparian landscapes, or to keep prairies, wetlands, forests, or meadows untrammeled, have fought with those who would exploit the resources that they contain. Because these battles draw in grassroots organizations, state and federal agencies, and national interest groups, and because these struggles play out over decades, you need a scorecard to keep track of the shifting arguments and alliances. There is no better place to begin to understand the intellectual roots, political sources, and social significance of these epic brawls over the meaning of wilder- ness than the thick book in your hands. That Wilderness and the American Mind is now in its fifth edition, and has been in print since it first appeared in 1967, signifies the enduring character of the struggle to come to terms with the natu- ral systems that sustain the United States. It tells you too that its author, Roderick Frazier Nash, has vividly depicted the tensions animating our conflicted relationship with wilderness — and in do- ing so has given his many readers an analytical understanding of wilderness and a framework by which to engage with it. "Not only did Nash capture the wilderness pulse of America," observes histo- rian Michael Lewis, but "he helped define that pulse, so that subse- quent generations of environmental scholars and activists discussed American wilderness in Nash's terms, with his examples, and with his heroes." That's the definition of a seminal, heuristic text.1 Some of the lessons Nash's book teaches are derived in different ways from his many decades running whitewater rapids that churn the turbulent rivers of the American West, work that began while he was a Harvard undergraduate. "For me, keeping an oar in the i. Michael Lewis, American Wilderness: A Mew History (New York, 2007), p. 7.
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