This book brings together the best of Leopold's essays.

    An intellectual history, it draws together evidence from philosophy, anthropology, theology, literature, ecology, cultural geography, and archaeology to provide a new scientifically and philosophically informed understanding of humankind’s relationship to nature. Oelschlaeger begins by examining the culture of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, whose totems symbolized the idea of organic unity between humankind and wild nature, and idea that the author believes is essential to any attempt to define human potential. He next traces how the transformation of these hunter-gatherers into farmers led to a new awareness of distinctions between humankind and nature, and how Hellenism and Judeo-Christianity later introduced the unprecedented concept that nature was valueless until humanized. Oelschlaeger discusses the concept of wilderness in relation to the rise of classical science and modernism, and shows that opposition to “modernism” arose almost immediately from scientific, literary, and philosophical communities. He provides new and, in some cases, revisionist studies of the seminal American figures Thoreau, Muir, and Leopold, and he gives fresh readings of America’s two prodigious wilderness poets Robinson Jeffers and Gary Snyder. He concludes with a searching look at the relationship of evolutionary thought to our postmodern effort to reconceptualize ourselves as civilized beings who remain, in some ways, natural animals.

    She, along with her husband, chose to leave a faster lane in order to find a way of life not possible in a larger urban area: building their own adobe home, giving birth to their first child at home, and developing self-reliance and a deepening commitment to each other. Her reverence for the land, its history, and native inhabitants always informs her writing, and her intelligence and strong narrative voice ring clearly throughout this remarkable work. Like the best personal memoirs, the book is also about the events, people, myths, and emotions that define the days and seasons. Songs of the Fluteplayer, called an ”enchanting book” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, marks an exciting literary debut.

    With no phone or running water, she and her research parmer immerse themselves in the study of a pair of endangered peregrine falcons that return to their ancestral nesting site on Chimney Rock.Coming to know these birds intimately while sharing their home, Houle develops an abiding devotion to them. She observes their breathtaking flight, their indomitable character, and their urgent will to survive.Before me a peregrine falcon emerged from the cliff with a fierce beauty; with utmost ease and perfect control it spun in a dizzying dive to the earth. Talons outstretched, it lightly grazed the object of its attention -- a trespassing prairie falcon who had slipped across the peregrine's invisible territorial line.... Its flight was a gust of pure energy.While conducting her research, Houle learns that Chimney Rock is the site of an Anasazi ruin slated for commercial development. She meets the unexpected resistance and hostility of townspeople who resent the obstacle the endangered birds pose to potential tourist dollars. Houle uncovers the depth and complexity of the issue that leads this community -- and so many others like it in today's growing world -- to an angry impasse. With compassion, insight, and fairness, Houle explores the dilemma between environmentalists and developers, both of whom value the land, but in different ways.Wings for My Flight is the story of one biologist who, through the help of another species, comes to a greater understanding of her own. As a Colorado press, Pruett Publishing is proud to reissue thisaward-winning book that addresses issues vital to Coloradans and Westerners.

    Wolfe (cover photographer to Stern, National Geographic, Smithsonian ) displays his splendid control and use of light, shadow, tone in 100 color plates. He is partial to mountains and r