Forever Wild

Fülszöveg

In the series American Civilization, edited by Allen F. Davis
Forever Wild
Environmental Aesthetics and the Adirondack Forest Preserve
PHILIP G. TERRIE
What the wilderness has meant in American culture is the focus for this fascinating book. What is the wilderness for? Is there an intrinsic value in mountains, forests, deserts, and wetlands? Should we leave them untouched? Or does the value of land lie in its potential for development? To answer these and other questions, the author has traced the evolution of environmental aesthetics and attitudes toward the wilderness in the Adirondack region of New York State, the East's last great wilderness.
A friend of the wilderness himself, Philip Terrie's interest lies not so much in the political and legal history of the region (although he cites the literature and offers a comprehensive bibliography). Rather, the author draws upon the cultural responses of the public, as evidenced not in court records but in actual explorers' and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

In the series American Civilization, edited by Allen F. Davis
Forever Wild
Environmental Aesthetics and the Adirondack Forest Preserve
PHILIP G. TERRIE
What the wilderness has meant in American culture is the focus for this fascinating book. What is the wilderness for? Is there an intrinsic value in mountains, forests, deserts, and wetlands? Should we leave them untouched? Or does the value of land lie in its potential for development? To answer these and other questions, the author has traced the evolution of environmental aesthetics and attitudes toward the wilderness in the Adirondack region of New York State, the East's last great wilderness.
A friend of the wilderness himself, Philip Terrie's interest lies not so much in the political and legal history of the region (although he cites the literature and offers a comprehensive bibliography). Rather, the author draws upon the cultural responses of the public, as evidenced not in court records but in actual explorers' and travelers' accounts. In narratives from the earliest days of European contact with the Adirondack setting to the present, the author demonstrates how the attitudes of Americans toward nature and the wilderness have changed with every shift in cultural outlook. Further, an overarching ambivalence manifests itself during each period of response.
From the Enlightenment, people imposed on the wilderness the Burkean aesthetic of the sublime and the beautiful. From romanticism, they added notions of the beneficence of nature and the immanence of God. As counterpoint to these strains of thought, however, ran a persistent, pervasive, and peculiarly American hostility to uncultivated and uncul-tivatable land. In the late nineteenth
(Continued on back flap)
century discoveries of the complexities and wonders of natural systems helped dispel the previous hostilities. The move toward a synthesis of romanticism and naturalism has, in fact, led to a twentieth-century wilderness aesthetic, one that appreciates and preserves wilderness, one that values undeveloped landscapes, and one that has resulted in an active wilderness political lobby.
This book offers a timely, topical, and yet timeless point of view. The original responses of seminal figures such as Ebenezer Emmons, Joel T. Headley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Verplank Colvin, and Henry Abbott tell us much about the wilderness and ourselves.
Strangely enough, not only did the constitutional approval of land designated to be "forever wild" in New York State come about almost by accident, but its original planners and its current supporters represent divergent opinions. Here, then, is a book for all who participate in the debate over wilderness land, as well as for those interested in environmental history, American culture, and aesthetics.
Philip G. Terrie is Assistant Professor of English and American Studies at Bowling Green State University. He is former Assistant Curator of the Adirondack Museum and a current book review editor for Environmental Review.
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