Rating: 
Summary: Loaded with Good Stuff
Review: A few years ago, this book was suggested to me as a great place to begin a project I was working on in school. It became the keystone of information I was looking for. So much good and insightful information about so many important minds and events in wilderness thought. Nash has written a favorite resource for historical perspective on environmental issues.
Rating:
Summary: The book of Genesis for the Environmentalist
Review: A very important book describing the beginnings of environmental thought and conservation. Rodrick Nash brings us through the thought process we as inhabitants of Mother Earth have gone through to acheive, or atleast attempt to, a better understanding of "Wilderness". Using some of the greatest naturalists and conservationists, Nash brings us forward with americas perception of "Wilderness" and Environmental thought. He deftly describes our, (the Environmenalists), mistakes and our triumphs in the political arena in our attempt to preserve the remaining wilderness areas. I was lucky enough to have Rodrick Nash as a teacher and advisor for my undergradute work in Environmental Studies. His classes were always fun and thought provoking, he "baptised" many people to the environmental movement, through his lectures and his books. This book was distributed to all the members of congress prior to the vote on the Wilderness Act, and has been credited as being instrumental in the passing of that act, Again an Important Book.
Rating:
Summary: Still the best introduction to American ideas about nature
Review: For a few decades now, Roderick Nash's WILDERNESS AND THE AMERICAN MIND in its various editions has been perhaps the best all around introduction to the history of American attitudes towards nature and about what makes these attitudes unique in world culture. All editions have covered the greater story, beginning with the early attitudes towards wilderness in colonial times, in which nature was viewed primarily in terms of the use to which it could be put and a sense of human responsibility to transform it for human use. Nash then shows how American ideas towards nature gradually altered through the thought of individuals inspired by Romanticism, in particular Emerson and Thoreau. He then describes how Americans moved from a view of nature as possessing value only to the degree to which it can be put to use, to a view of wilderness having intrinsic value entirely on its own. All the major events in American environmental history are covered, from the popularization of wilderness through painters such as Cole, Bierstadt, and Moran, to the work and influence of John Muir, through the creation of the national park and forest system, to the work of 20th century figures such as Aldo Leopold. The book makes all-in-all a fascinating read, and anyone wanting to learn about In particular, Nash shows how the view of undeveloped wilderness as something possessing intrinsic value worth preserving in an undeveloped state is a uniquely American idea, and one of the great intellectual contributions to world thought. Today, a large number of countries have followed America's lead in establishing national parks and wildlife preserves. All over the world, the notion of wilderness and nature possessing value apart from what human activity imparts to it is commonplace. For anyone wanting to go beyond Nash's book to read more deeply on the various topics covered will find Nash's Bibliographic Essay to be almost as valuable as the book itself. Nash is an obvious bibliophile, and he provides a rich and varied introduction to every aspect of his subject. After reading this book for the first time, I read a large number of books suggested by Nash in his essay. I later offered some continuing education classes at the University of Chicago on environmental ethics, a subject about which I learned primarily by working from Nash's bibliography. The ongoing value of this book has been enhanced by the recent fourth edition, which has not only added a new preface but has extensively updated the bibliography. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone even remotely interested in American or environmental history. Best of all, this book, while impeccable in its academic credentials, is never less than utterly fun and delightfully readable. Definitely not for scholars and students alone.
Rating: 
Summary: Better for Environmentalists then Others
Review: I believed that this book would be an exploration of the concept of "wilderness" as it relates to the American mind. And it is, for about one hundred pages. Since this is a four hundred page bok, that leaves a lot of space to fill. I found the first two hundred pages to be interesting, the last two hundred to be a slog. Nash spends an interminable amount of time covering "contemporary" environmental struggles. Were it my book, I would have omitted the chapter about Alaska. I imagine that most who read this book have a grasp on the environmental struggles of the recent past. As I mentioned before, the reason I read this book was to gain a perspecitve on how these struggles came about. This book is, I suppose, a classic in the field. I guess, ultimately, it's just a field (environmentalism/ecology) that doesn't interest me that much. So I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to others, unless those others consider themselves dedicated environmentalists. Then you HAVE to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Better for Environmentalists then Others
Review: I believed that this book would be an exploration of the concept of "wilderness" as it relates to the American mind. And it is, for about one hundred pages. Since this is a four hundred page bok, that leaves a lot of space to fill. I found the first two hundred pages to be interesting, the last two hundred to be a slog. Nash spends an interminable amount of time covering "contemporary" environmental struggles. Were it my book, I would have omitted the chapter about Alaska. I imagine that most who read this book have a grasp on the environmental struggles of the recent past. As I mentioned before, the reason I read this book was to gain a perspecitve on how these struggles came about. This book is, I suppose, a classic in the field. I guess, ultimately, it's just a field (environmentalism/ecology) that doesn't interest me that much. So I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to others, unless those others consider themselves dedicated environmentalists. Then you HAVE to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Better for Environmentalists then Others
Review: I believed that this book would be an exploration of the concept of "wilderness" as it relates to the American mind. And it is, for about one hundred pages. Since this is a four hundred page bok, that leaves a lot of space to fill. I found the first two hundred pages to be interesting, the last two hundred to be a slog. Nash spends an interminable amount of time covering "contemporary" environmental struggles. Were it my book, I would have omitted the chapter about Alaska. I imagine that most who read this book have a grasp on the environmental struggles of the recent past. As I mentioned before, the reason I read this book was to gain a perspecitve on how these struggles came about. This book is, I suppose, a classic in the field. I guess, ultimately, it's just a field (environmentalism/ecology) that doesn't interest me that much. So I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to others, unless those others consider themselves dedicated environmentalists. Then you HAVE to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A classic for any environmentalist's library
Review: I stumbled across this book in the course of some research on the so-called "Greening of American Religion," ie the reinterpretation of the Bible and other religious works to more appreciate, rather than vilify, the non-human environment. As Nash thoroughly documents in the first chapters of this book, Christianity (or at least American elements of it) certainly bears a heavy cross when it comes to environmental destruction in America. After reading Nash, someone is going to have to do some real creative reinterpretation to convince me that the Bible does not say what generations of Americans have understood it to say: the earth was made for man, and man has every right to control and manage it to his ends, part of which means conquering and "civilizing" wilderness and everything within it. These early chapters are important, because it constructs the anti-wilderness mindset that so thoroughly dominated early American (world?) history (and for that matter continues to influence the thought of millions of Americans). Subsequent chapters chronicle how some Americans-initially only lone voices like Thoreau and Muir-rejected this view and developed the idea of wilderness we generally accept today within the preservationist movement. In the process Nash explores competing "environmentalist" theories such as the "wise use" (conservationist) leanings of Pinchot and TR Roosevelt and the surprising beginnings of some of our contemporary "environmentalist" legislation (e.g. forest reserve system). Later chapters focus on the Hetch-Hetchy controversy and Leopold. As such this book serves as a very readable and well-constructed general history of American environmentalism, a book any "environmentalist" (regardless of how you define that term) should read. As another reviewer notes, some of the scholarship needs to be updated (e.g. the apocryphal "campfire chat" of the "founders" of Yellowstone NP that likely never took place, as discussed in Schullery's recent history of Yellowstone). But overall an excellent resource, one you'll want on your bookshelf if for no other reason than the copious quotes sprinkled throughout the text used to support Nash's arguments. My favorite (from Lord Byron's Manfred: A Dramatic Poem (London 1817)): There is a pleasure in the pathless woods
There is a rapture on the lonely shore
There is a society where none intrudes
I love not the man less, but nature more.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic study of the origins of the wilderness thought.
Review: Nash provides some of the best short writing about historic figures who are central to the environmental movement: Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold. The theme throughout is wilderness, so readers should not make the mistake of thinking this is a definitive history of the environmental or conservation movements. However, as a scholarly introduction to major themes in environmental history, this book stands alone. The first two chapters are somewhat tedious, as Nash attempts to create a philosophical underpinning for American attitudes toward nature. The nature enthusiast who tolerates this somewhat awkward section will be rewarded with an insightful and informative read
Rating: 
Summary: The Most Serious Form of Pollution is Mind Pollution
Review: This is an epic book about the American wilderness and what the author believes to be the causes leading to the degradation of cultural landscapes in America. Required reading for most environmental history and ecology courses, the book has been reprinted 19 times and revised 7 times since its publication in 1967 and is the largest selling book from Yale University Press. Unfortunately, the basic premises in this first edition, while reflecting popular wisdom during the Vietnam era, are unsupported, poorly documented, and perpetuate an "us versus them" environmentalist argument. Shame on academia today where these prejudices are propagated as mandatory reading without critical review: the theories of this first edition have not stood the test of time, rather clearly document the biases and ego the author deemed valid at 28 years old. The most serious form of pollution is mind pollution and it started with Wilderness and the American Mind. Roderick Nash makes brash statements supported by unreliable secondary sources, incomplete research, gross generalizations and contradictory logic. He asserts that Americans "regarded the wilderness areas of this continent as a moral and physical wasteland to be conquered and fructified in the name of civilization, Christianity, and progress" (inside dust jacket). He further asserts that Americans were searching for a national culture after their independence from England. Without citations, Nash does express in the preface a legitimate concern that through a gradual transformation, these attitudes have largely been replaced with "one of appreciation." Without a formal classical language education and using Nelson's Bible Concordance (NY, 1957) to document the ancient meaning of Greek and Hebrew text, he erroneously quotes Scripture out of context to make general inaccurate arguments such as: "for the Christian, wilderness has long been a potent symbol applied to the moral chaos of the unregenerate" (p. 3); the Christian man "dreams of life without wilderness" (p. 9, without source); when the Lord wanted to punish people, "he found the wilderness condition to be his most powerful weapon" (p. 14); and because the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, "wilderness retained its significance as the environment of evil and hardship" (p. 17). Ironically, he contradicts these statements by acknowledging that "the importance of wilderness as a sanctuary was perpetuated in Christianity" (p. 17). After making a deductive argument with these inaccurate references, he concludes that Eastern cultures did not fear and abhor the wilderness because they were "freed from the combined weight of classicism, Judaism and Christianity" (p. 21). Nowhere was "classicism" addressed or proven that classicism, Judaism and Christianity somehow are in concert. Roderick Nash's evidentiary support of civilization and man's progress are similarly flawed. Using secondary sources for sporadic primary quotes, such as "William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower into a `hideous and desolate wilderness,'" Nash concludes that the early settlers' "anticipations of a second Eden were quickly shattered against the reality of North America." After rambling on of European events quoting personal experiences of William Bartram, William Byrd, Daniel Boone, James Pattie, and others (pp. 63-66), Nash proposes that the "appreciation of wilderness began in the cities" (p. 44). The flawed logic results from an assumption that only those in the city had the appropriate awareness of the wilderness. Nash states, "It was widely assumed that America's primary task was the justification of its newly won freedom" (p. 65). (Without a source, it is incomprehensible where this came from.) Trying to add credibility to an absurd argument, Nash sprinkles in a few quotes from David Thoreau and John Muir. Again, however, Nash is original in suggesting that Thoreau's "shocking" experience in the Maine woods (p. 91) caused Thoreau to lead "the intellectual revolution that was beginning to invest wilderness with attractive rather than repulsive questions." Nash should have stopped here. Over the next 200 pages, he wanders aimlessly in literary wilderness. Chapters six through ten discuss history wilderness preservation efforts. Another Nash original idea is that Muir had an "intellectual debt to Thoreau and to primitivism" (p. 127). He gives Olmsted and Eliot token credit for the "patches near cities" (p. 155) as if to infer that urban landscape architecture has a relationship to wilderness. He further confuses the reader with his concept of the "great chain of being" developed since the Greeks. In this argument, he is unwilling to drop his prejudicial treatment of Jews and Christians, stating that the "Christian belief in the imminency of the end of the world make efforts to protect nature seem futile" (p. 193). Quoting Aldo Leopold, "the two great cultural advances of the past century were the Darwinian Theory and the development of geology,": Nash unequivocally states without evidence that "Both helped tear down the wall Christian thought had so carefully erected between man and other forms of life." (p. 193). Maybe Nash felt throwing rocks in the wilderness was a form of geology that might make his case more convincing. If given a choice, any edition of Wilderness and the American Mind would not be on the list of required reading materials for a course in Environmental History. There are many more recent texts that make convincing logical arguments and are well supported. If the prospective reader wants to truly understand the issues related to religion and ecology, Nash lacks the credentials to make an argument. The most compelling indictment against Nash's credibility was his glaring absence at a series of seminars addressing the Religions of the World and Ecology held at Harvard University - his alma mater. Over a three year period, from 1996 to 1998 when Nash was a Professor of History and Environmental Studies at UCSB, the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions conducted research with "the direct participation and collaboration of over seven hundred scholars, religions leaders and environmental specialists around the world." (http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr/)
Another excellent book on this subject is a series of documents and essays compiled by Carolyn Merchant, a professor in Environmental History at the University of California at Berkeley. The book titled, Major Problems in American Environmental History. (Lexington: DC Heath and Company, 1993) provides a more objective view of the issues in American ecology and traces development of landscapes from the earliest Indian civilizations to present. Merchant avoids the antagonism between religion and ecology by addressing both the good and bad realities in a sensitive and purposeful way. This review was of the first edition. While subsequent editions have been published, the basic tenets of this review remain valid. "The serious form of pollution is mind pollution," quote by Roderick Nash. Candidate for Masters in Architecture and Landscape Architecture
University of Colorado in Denver
Rating:
Summary: The Most Serious Form of Pollution is Mind Pollution
Review: This is an epic book about the American wilderness and what the author believes to be the causes leading to the degradation of cultural landscapes in America. Required reading for most environmental history and ecology courses, the book has been reprinted 19 times and revised 7 times since its publication in 1967 and is the largest selling book from Yale University Press. Unfortunately, the basic premises in this first edition, while reflecting popular wisdom during the Vietnam era, are unsupported, poorly documented, and perpetuate an "us versus them" environmentalist argument. Shame on academia today where these prejudices are propagated as mandatory reading without critical review: the theories of this first edition have not stood the test of time, rather clearly document the biases and ego the author deemed valid at 28 years old. The most serious form of pollution is mind pollution and it started with Wilderness and the American Mind. Roderick Nash makes brash statements supported by unreliable secondary sources, incomplete research, gross generalizations and contradictory logic. He asserts that Americans "regarded the wilderness areas of this continent as a moral and physical wasteland to be conquered and fructified in the name of civilization, Christianity, and progress" (inside dust jacket). He further asserts that Americans were searching for a national culture after their independence from England. Without citations, Nash does express in the preface a legitimate concern that through a gradual transformation, these attitudes have largely been replaced with "one of appreciation." Without a formal classical language education and using Nelson's Bible Concordance (NY, 1957) to document the ancient meaning of Greek and Hebrew text, he erroneously quotes Scripture out of context to make general inaccurate arguments such as: "for the Christian, wilderness has long been a potent symbol applied to the moral chaos of the unregenerate" (p. 3); the Christian man "dreams of life without wilderness" (p. 9, without source); when the Lord wanted to punish people, "he found the wilderness condition to be his most powerful weapon" (p. 14); and because the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, "wilderness retained its significance as the environment of evil and hardship" (p. 17). Ironically, he contradicts these statements by acknowledging that "the importance of wilderness as a sanctuary was perpetuated in Christianity" (p. 17). After making a deductive argument with these inaccurate references, he concludes that Eastern cultures did not fear and abhor the wilderness because they were "freed from the combined weight of classicism, Judaism and Christianity" (p. 21). Nowhere was "classicism" addressed or proven that classicism, Judaism and Christianity somehow are in concert. Roderick Nash's evidentiary support of civilization and man's progress are similarly flawed. Using secondary sources for sporadic primary quotes, such as "William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower into a 'hideous and desolate wilderness,'" Nash concludes that the early settlers' "anticipations of a second Eden were quickly shattered against the reality of North America." After rambling on of European events quoting personal experiences of William Bartram, William Byrd, Daniel Boone, James Pattie, and others (pp. 63-66), Nash proposes that the "appreciation of wilderness began in the cities" (p. 44). The flawed logic results from an assumption that only those in the city had the appropriate awareness of the wilderness. Nash states, "It was widely assumed that America's primary task was the justification of its newly won freedom" (p. 65). (Without a source, it is incomprehensible where this came from.) Trying to add credibility to an absurd argument, Nash sprinkles in a few quotes from David Thoreau and John Muir. Again, however, Nash is original in suggesting that Thoreau's "shocking" experience in the Maine woods (p. 91) caused Thoreau to lead "the intellectual revolution that was beginning to invest wilderness with attractive rather than repulsive questions." Nash should have stopped here. Over the next 200 pages, he wanders aimlessly in literary wilderness. Chapters six through ten discuss history wilderness preservation efforts. Another Nash original idea is that Muir had an "intellectual debt to Thoreau and to primitivism" (p. 127). He gives Olmsted and Eliot token credit for the "patches near cities" (p. 155) as if to infer that urban landscape architecture has a relationship to wilderness. He further confuses the reader with his concept of the "great chain of being" developed since the Greeks. In this argument, he is unwilling to drop his prejudicial treatment of Jews and Christians, stating that the "Christian belief in the imminency of the end of the world make efforts to protect nature seem futile" (p. 193). Quoting Aldo Leopold, "the two great cultural advances of the past century were the Darwinian Theory and the development of geology,": Nash unequivocally states without evidence that "Both helped tear down the wall Christian thought had so carefully erected between man and other forms of life." (p. 193). Maybe Nash felt throwing rocks in the wilderness was a form of geology that might make his case more convincing. If given a choice, any edition of Wilderness and the American Mind would not be on the list of required reading materials for a course in Environmental History. There are many more recent texts that make convincing logical arguments and are well supported. If the prospective reader wants to truly understand the issues related to religion and ecology, Nash lacks the credentials to make an argument. The most compelling indictment against Nash's credibility was his glaring absence at a series of seminars addressing the Religions of the World and Ecology held at Harvard University - his alma mater. Over a three year period, from 1996 to 1998 when Nash was a Professor of History and Environmental Studies at UCSB, the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions conducted research with "the direct participation and collaboration of over seven hundred scholars, religions leaders and environmental specialists around the world." (http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr/)
Another excellent book on this subject is a series of documents and essays compiled by Carolyn Merchant, a professor in Environmental History at the University of California at Berkeley. The book titled, Major Problems in American Environmental History. (Lexington: DC Heath and Company, 1993) provides a more objective view of the issues in American ecology and traces development of landscapes from the earliest Indian civilizations to present. Merchant avoids the antagonism between religion and ecology by addressing both the good and bad realities in a sensitive and purposeful way. This review was of the first edition. While subsequent editions have been published, the basic tenets of this review remain valid. "The serious form of pollution is mind pollution," quote by Roderick Nash. Candidate for Masters in Architecture and Landscape Architecture
University of Colorado in Denver
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