Roderick nash why wilderness

For example, no motorized equipment is allowed for clearing trails and horses have to be fed with special weed-free fodder. As we hiked through the forest with skies, the local forest composition and wildlife were not only discussed but explored up close. The hunting permit system was a topic as well. The day ended with a cozy dinner and local craft beer with fellow students of the Environmental Management program. This concept for Wilderness, being a process without a fixed baseline rather than a state, played an integral part in my master thesis.

Consequently, meeting and skiing with Rod Nash was an incredible honour and pleasure for me. I am more than thankful to Dr. John Hausdoerffer for organising this amazing weekend of knowledge exchange and Wilderness discoveries and for introducing me to such intersting fellow Wilderness advocates. Skip to content.

Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item Wilderness and the American mind. Reviews User-contributed reviews Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Be the first. Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. United States -- Civilization. Nature conservation. Wilderness areas. Frontier and pioneer life. United States. Geschichte User lists with this item 5 american wilderness 3 items by wuchuanfeng updated All rights reserved.

Please sign in to WorldCat Don't have an account? Remember me on this computer. Cancel Forgot your password? Roderick Nash. Print book : English View all editions and formats. Nature conservation -- United States. View all subjects. User lists Similar Items. Online version: Nash, Roderick.

Roderick Nash Find more information about: Roderick Nash. The frontiersmen and pioneers who worked the land continued the old mindset, but those educated and raised in cities began to romanticize the wilderness. Through journals of travelers, writers, painters, and other elites with the money and time to spare, the American wilderness itself, not its conquering, began to become the unique marker of American identity.

Awkwardly placed as an addition in the last chapter, Nash even shows the global attraction of American wilderness as an export commodity. The popularity spread into spiritual realms through the new religions of Deism and Transcendentalism that recognized God, not evil, in the wilderness.

Both carried strong political and philosophical arguments into the twenty-first century, which is often clumsily, but importantly argued through the case-studies of Hetch Hetchy, Echo Park, Alaska, and the Grand Canyon. Nash excellently uses an array of interdisciplinary sources to peer into the minds of important American men and how their views shaped popular thought about wilderness, and more foundationally, American identity.

With brief mentions, most of which come in the additional chapters, this book does not do enough to tell the whole story of Wilderness and the American Mind.

Sep 16, Tom Brown rated it really liked it. Nash tells the fascinating history of the relationship between non-native almost entirely white male people and wilderness, focusing on the United States. He describes many philosophical and policy questions our society has faced as Europeans established and then advanced a frontier at end edge of their civilization.

He ends by comparing and connecting the history of the American wilderness to those of many other countries on our planet and ends with far-out picture of how a sophisticated futu Nash tells the fascinating history of the relationship between non-native almost entirely white male people and wilderness, focusing on the United States.

He ends by comparing and connecting the history of the American wilderness to those of many other countries on our planet and ends with far-out picture of how a sophisticated future human society could share Earth with the wilderness. Reading this book greatly increased my appreciation for the existence of our public lands and the challenges facing modern land managers.

I found the descriptions of wealthy city dwellers returning from their wilderness excursions with self-aggrandizing tales of sublime landscapes and rejuvenated spirits pretty entertaining; almost years have passed and only the tools have changed. This is non-fiction and contains a lot of references. This book is clearly a summary of a lifetime of academic study, which comes from a mostly white male perspective of history.

May 24, Greg Marcinkowski rated it it was amazing. Dang, so good! Really is a definitive history of the conservation movement in America, and even into other parts of the world in this 5th edition. I can't believe the amount of research Nash did, the quotes and citations and footnotes are beyond extensive. I was always a little hesitant to pick this up, thinking it might be sort of a dense, rote history, but it remained enjoyable the entire time and was a joy to read.

Glad these words have gone through my brain! This book is an outstanding resource for the student of American wilderness history up to the 70s. Keeping in mind this is an older edition, the newer one may be equally useful through the end of the 20th century.

The bibliographical essay at the end alone is worth the purchase. However, the book itself is not particularly inspiring. The writing is slow and plodding. Sometimes theories are arrived at that are not necessary to the discussion and rest on shaky ground. While comprehensive, its organ This book is an outstanding resource for the student of American wilderness history up to the 70s.

While comprehensive, its organization seems, at times, haphazard. The viewpoint is strictly European and European descendant based with very little commentary made on the Native American viewpoint and none on the African American viewpoint.

Those things being said, it is arguably one of the best reference books out there in regards to the ideas and perceptions of wilderness in the United States from colonial roots to the post-Vietnam era.

It is a great starting point for any research on the topic and I would recommend it to any student of environmental history. Jan 22, Robert rated it it was amazing. Was a true revelation to me at that time and has informed my opinions on Wilderness and policy ever since. A profoundly important history tracking all of the ways our biases regarding wilderness have developed and shifted since colonization.

Eventually it catalogs the details and politics of the National Park System, The Wilderness Protection Act and a multitude of other efforts to preserve and create awareness of wild spaces. Fascinating to learn how the efforts made in the United States became a template for other nations and how the approach to preservation succeeds and fails and polarizes.

It lea A profoundly important history tracking all of the ways our biases regarding wilderness have developed and shifted since colonization.

It leaves us in the early 's, with searching questions and an array of imagined potentialities about the future of wilderness, particularly of how "awareness" itself is a double-edged sword. The scholarship is towering and provides endless trails of opportunity for further reading. Jan 06, John Winn rated it it was amazing. I can't claim to be an environmentalist. I am a student of history however, and in some strange and imperceptible way I am fascinated by the history of the conservation, or one might better call it, wilderness movement here in these United States.

Like a lot of my fellow students I was assigned this book by a rather incorrigible and inspirational professor in my senior year at college, and after reading it I am sure not the same person I was going in. You don't know what you don't know, and as it I can't claim to be an environmentalist. You don't know what you don't know, and as it turns out there is plenty to find out here.

Hetch Hetchy is probably the least well known story in the history of the environmental movement. Outside of a few well known documentaries and a few magazine articles there isn't much discussion of it.

It does not have the flair and drama of more contemporary flashpoints in our own time, but as it was unfolding it was every bit as controversial as Standing Rock is today--and bittersweet as well.

Ever the academician Mr. Nash captures this in its length and breadth; it is perhaps the example of the struggle between preservation on the one hand and government's obligation to the people on the other, but not the only one.

The history of the wilderness movement is a lengthy and voluminous one. As an academic resource Wilderness and the American Mind does its best to capture the scope of that, but it is far from the only one.

It is also among the best sourced. Cited by over 5, historians and experts including William Cronon, PW Taylor and others it has gone on to be an influential resource in the fields of environmental ethics, history, and sustainable development among others. And aspiring environmental scientists, lawyers, policy makers and others will get some mileage out of it as well--but that is not why it is special. Sometimes the greatest source of information is the thing hidden in plain sight.

This is a dense book, and thanks to Mr. Nash's attention to detail a weighty one as well, but well worth it. It isn't for everyone, but much like the vistas featured within its page, if you scale the summit you can appreciate the view, and what a view it is. Nov 11, Sarah Clement rated it it was amazing Shelves: phd-and-professional-reads. This is one of those books where, if you grew up in America or have been influenced by similar notions of 'wilderness' I find many other places have similar ideas of wilderness, outside of Europe , you will actually realise quite a lot about yourself in reading this book.

In the current political climate, it perhaps feels strange now to think about the fact that 'national parks', as first developed, were an American concept where large tracts of nature are protected with the notion of conservat This is one of those books where, if you grew up in America or have been influenced by similar notions of 'wilderness' I find many other places have similar ideas of wilderness, outside of Europe , you will actually realise quite a lot about yourself in reading this book.

In the current political climate, it perhaps feels strange now to think about the fact that 'national parks', as first developed, were an American concept where large tracts of nature are protected with the notion of conservation as their primary purpose. The idea has been transferred across the globe, and although in many places 'national parks' really bear little resemblance to their American counterparts in Europe, for example, they are often just large areas of farmland where people live and work, which is quite far from their original conception , but this book made me think about that influence not just on institutions, but on national identity.

But despite our romanticisation of wilderness, as Nash points out, national parks did not emerge out of a mass movement of Americans calling for preservation. They emerged largely out of a small group of conservationists like John Muir a Scotsman, in fact spearheading efforts to protect the American West. What I like about this book is that it tracks the development of a philosophy of wilderness over time, and contains a comprehensive account of how key individuals helped make recreation in wilderness the 'in' thing to do.

So victorious were they, Nash argues, that many of our wilderness areas are actually overrun with people, ironically damaging the very thing that gave the movement appeal. Nash also has a gift for distilling information into simple, digestible pieces, thus the book contains a lot of graphs that are not so much depictions of quantitative data, but translate qualitative data into compelling heuristics for understanding how that philosophy developed over time.

The book is so popular that it is now on its 5th edition, and is definitely a must read for anyone who loves nature and the idea of 'wilderness'. This book's great strength is its breadth of research. Nash does not go into great depth into any one topic, but he does cover each theme or time period very comprehensively.

All his points are cited completely, so it is very easy for you to follow his tracks and go into greater depth where you want to.

In this sense, Wilderness and the American Mind is a perfect reference material. One reviewer criticized that Nash was too biased in favour of white history on the question of wilderness. I think Nash had no choice. The entire problem with the world today is the Judeo-Christian and European conception of wilderness. Since Nash's book is essentially a call for reform and activism, it would not have made sense for him to focus on First Nations' ideas of wilderness.

If North America had followed their example, the world would be an entirely different place, ecologically speaking. I found chapter 13 to be disappointing. Its title, "Towards a Philosophy of Wilderness" suggests that there will be a tangible result or argument, some sort of synthesis.

Instead, Nash offers an overview of the various ecological and environmental arguments and ideas that came after Aldo Leopold. My expectation is that Nash's next book, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics might be the place to look for a more complete philosophical treatment. Nash is very sensitive to thinkers who propose solving the conflict between society and wilderness by placing a foot in each realm.

The wild citizen. The cultured wild man. In other words he is not a primitivist. He acknowledges the power and necessity of technology. He would simply like to see us use it to solve our problems rather than create them. Here is the missing gap that we still haven't learned to fill.

And Nash is silent on this matter too: Why do we use technology to fuel consumerism and conquest and not to conserve and sanctify? Sep 27, Scott Pfahler rated it really liked it. This book tells the history of the idea of wilderness in the United States. It has become one of the books many people point to as a touchstone in the field of wilderness conservation alongside books like A Sand County Almanac and Walden.

The basic narrative it traces is how our conception of wilderness shifted dramatically throughout the history of this country from something to be feared and tamed to something to be admired and preserved. One interesting topic the book covers is the complicate This book tells the history of the idea of wilderness in the United States.

One interesting topic the book covers is the complicated history of wilderness management. Once Americans started to realize that its natural places might be something they should protect, they first focused on the economic value of wilderness before the movement started to think that wild places deserved to be protected regardless of economics.

As the conservation movement gained momentum and wilderness preserves and National Parks became more common people began to realize that the movement might become a victim of its own success the book talks about the concern that we might be loving our wilderness to death. The book highlights many of the major figures in the history of the conservation movement such as Emerson, Thoreau, Muir and others.

Given that the original edition was published in , white men make up almost all of the figures this book focuses on, which is disappointing that the author did not bring in any other perspectives in the modern edition. Overall though this is a fascinating if somewhat dense read. Well-written but long Nash offers an excellent analysis of how wildnerness became both a part of the American national fabric and came to represent the one thing that made America unique from other countries between the 18th and 20th centuries.

While Nash offers excellent transitions and excellent insights into the ideas and legislation that led to the establishment of national parks, towards the end he gets slightly long winded, to the point of making his work less accessible to a more general a Well-written but long Nash offers an excellent analysis of how wildnerness became both a part of the American national fabric and came to represent the one thing that made America unique from other countries between the 18th and 20th centuries.

While Nash offers excellent transitions and excellent insights into the ideas and legislation that led to the establishment of national parks, towards the end he gets slightly long winded, to the point of making his work less accessible to a more general audience. Perhaps the biggest downfall to this book is the final chapter where Nash engages into speculation about the future of humans relationship wth the wilderness, and while he does have some interesting ideas, I think he spends far too much time indulging in his own ideas instead of offering a proper summarization of his overall ideas.

However, ignoring those parts, this is an excellent read for those looking to explore the social and political history of our national parks.

Aug 11, Carolyn rated it really liked it. I thought it was funny to hear about people like Dominy and the Bureau of Reclamation again like my favorite Cadillac Desert. You can tell the author loves certain people as they are mentioned over and over like John Denver.

I did learn about how we evolved from the Puritan view of using America as Eden. And, how over and over, countries overuse their land, then start to need to preserve it, and then try to convince other new countries to do the same, which often fails. Especially great for the novice of environmentalism, of which, after reading this, I might not consider myself anymore.

Jun 16, Heather Bond rated it liked it. A third is only beginning to be recognised. The paradox of wilderness management is that the necessary means defeat the desired end.

Jan 25, Emma rated it did not like it Shelves: e-book , ch3. So Euro-centric it literally made me laugh out loud. This is a historian who thinks every spiritual tradition is exactly like Christianity, Native Americans are basically animals, and that only people who live in cities can really appreciate nature.

As absurd as it is offensive. Even the size and shape of the 5th ed. Jan 11, Carson rated it really liked it. There is very little Native American, lower class, or non-male perspective cited. Jun 14, HanLing Petredean rated it really liked it.