THE HEART OF THE WILD

Essayists seek an ecological path forward.

Editors Minteer, author of A Wilder Kingdom, and Losos, author of How Evolution Shapes Our Lives, open with a consideration of 19th-century landscape painter Thomas Cole, the allegorical content of his work, and his warning to America about abandoning its wilderness roots. Yet they caution that Cole’s profoundly influential message rested, in part, on what today seem like problematic assumptions, chiefly his idealized, mythic sense of what constitutes “wilderness” and the American exceptionalism it implies. What is truly “wild” in the sense that the early European settlers in the Americas understood it, ignorant of the land’s actual cultural and biological history? Much of what we think of as wilderness areas are actually nothing of the sort; they were husbanded by Indigenous peoples for centuries. The scientists, humanists, and nature writers whose essays grace this book present subtle, though sometimes striking, differences in defining the term wild. Their thought-provoking essays not only convey the complexities involved—the tensions among preservation, rewilding, and human access—but often surprise with their unconventional attitudes and perspectives. Yet each essayist seems to share a conviction that having a scientific grasp of the perils facing our planet is incomplete without forging a moral and emotional bond with it. The theme of discovering, protecting, and actually experiencing nature is the linchpin of the book, together with a call to modify or discard outmoded ideas for a more effective approach. Rarely is the tone sententious or the writing ponderously academic. There are too many varied and nuanced voices to neatly summarize, yet there’s the dispiriting feeling that these writers may be preaching to the choir. Contributors include Hal Herzog, Martha L. Crump, Kathleen Dean Moore, and Gary Paul Nabhan.

Clarity and complication mark this wide-ranging collection.