Wilderness and the American Mind

Wilderness and the American Mind is a 1967 book written by Roderick Nash. The book began as part of a doctoral research program that Nash entered in 1960 at the University of Wisconsin. The book centers on the complex relationship between US citizens and their wilderness. Nash chronicles historical figures and pivotal moments that initiated a transformation of this relationship.

The modern environmental movement heralded this history text as a landmark work in the field. The chapters are generally chronological, and Nash opens the first one by discussing the cultural sources of wilderness perception. To keep the book contemporary, Nash added chapters in subsequent editions as well as a Prologue and an Epilogue in which he offers his own solutions to the problems he describes in the book.

This guide references the 5th edition, published in 2014, as well as the Kindle edition of the original published by Yale University Press.

Plot Summary

This book’s scope is broad, as it covers the colonial beginnings of America through the centuries until the landmark Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. In between, Nash examines the continual evolution of the nation’s relationship with its wilderness, which began as an adversarial one. In the opening chapter, Nash links this to Judeo-Christian thinking and describes how its influence persisted in the cultural psyche well after the nation’s founding days. The Puritan impulse to bifurcate complex issues into simple-to-understand binaries informed early citizens’ outlook on wilderness as a physical reality as well as its metaphorical implications. In short, all things wild were a force for evil; all things civilized were a force for good.

As the nation developed its independence and began to seek an identity, its relationship with wilderness began to change. Influenced by enlightenment thought and the trend toward the use of reason in the sciences, intellectuals began to reconsider the rationale for the traditionally adversarial relationship with wilderness. As a product of enlightenment, Romanticism was likewise a significant influence, and American intellectuals and artists embraced it. The idea of the beautiful and sublime existing in nature as portrayed by British poet William Wordsworth and others persuaded their American contemporaries. Soon, new strains of Romanticism arose, most notably American Transcendentalism. Influential writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau advocated new ways of looking at wilderness that tapped into the religious vein in American thinking in the mid-19th century. Thoreau posited that one could experience the divine directly through nature if one’s mind were open enough to allow for the possibility. Ideas like these struck a chord with many US citizens, and a movement to preserve nature began to take hold.

Nash devotes a whole chapter to Thoreau and another to a figure whom Thoreau’s thought influenced significantly: John Muir, whose name is synonymous with the preservation movement. Following the ideals that Thoreau and his friend Emerson depicted, Muir applied these ideals as an ethic or way of life. His passion for being in the wilderness and for protecting it was a monumental force in changing how Americans viewed wilderness. Because of John Muir, the movement gained a sure foothold in the American conscience.

In addition, Nash presents important ideological battles in which the interests of preservation confronted those of a rapidly increasing population, specifically in the American West. Nash devotes a whole chapter to an analysis of the Hetch Hetchy dam construction in California’s Yosemite Valley. He presents the various positions of leading figures at the time, including John Muir and former president Theodore Roosevelt. In discussing these controversial moments, Nash demonstrates how the nature of the debate continued to evolve throughout the 20th century.

The fifth edition includes an Epilogue that helps the book retain relevance as the discussion about balancing the needs of civilization with the health of the environment continues in US culture and politics. Nash uses the Epilogue to offer his own ideas about how civilization and wilderness can coexist. In considering technological progress, Nash’s vision of the future is optimistic, building on preservationist ideals and urging an enlightened restraint.