A controversial, timely reassessment of the environmentalist agenda by outstanding historians, scientists, and
critics.
In a lead essay that powerfully states the broad argument of the book, William Cronon writes that the environmentalist
goal of wilderness preservation is conceptually and politically wrongheaded. Among the ironies and entanglements
resulting from this goal are the sale of nature in our malls through the Nature Company, and the disputes between
working people and environmentalists over spotted owls and other objects of species preservation.
The problem is that we haven't learned to live responsibly in nature. The environmentalist aim of legislating humans
out of the wilderness is no solution. People, Cronon argues, are inextricably tied to nature, whether they live
in cities or countryside. Rather than attempt to exclude humans, environmental advocates should help us learn to
live in some sustainable relationship with nature. It is our home.
"An intellectually pathbreaking book."--Daniel J. Kevles
"The best kind of book, one that shocks the reader into entirely fresh ways of thinking."--Michael Pollan
William Cronon is Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison.
