In its infancy, the movement to protect wilderness areas in the
United States was motivated less by perceived threats from
industrial and agricultural activities than by concern over the
impacts of automobile owners seeking recreational opportunities in
wild areas. Countless commercial and government purveyors
vigorously promoted the mystique of travel to breathtakingly scenic
places, and roads and highways were built to facilitate such
travel. By the early 1930s, New Deal public works programs brought
these trends to a startling crescendo. The dilemma faced by
stewards of the nation's public lands was how to protect the wild
qualities of those places while accommodating, and often
encouraging, automobile-based tourism. By 1935, the founders of the
Wilderness Society had become convinced of the impossibility of
doing both. In Driven Wild, Paul Sutter traces the intellectual and
cultural roots of the modern wilderness movement from about 1910
through the 1930s, with tightly drawn portraits of four Wilderness
Society founders--Aldo Leopold, Robert Sterling Yard, Benton
MacKaye, and Bob Marshall. Each man brought a different background
and perspective to the advocacy for wilderness preservation, yet
each was spurred by a fear of what growing numbers of automobiles,
aggressive road building, and the meteoric increase in Americans
turning to nature for their leisure would do to the country's wild
places. As Sutter discovered, the founders of the Wilderness
Society were "driven wild"--pushed by a rapidly changing country to
construct a new preservationist ideal. Sutter demonstrates that the
birth of the movement to protect wilderness areas reflected a
growing belief among an important group of conservationists that
the modern forces of capitalism, industrialism, urbanism, and mass
consumer culture were gradually eroding not just the ecology of
North America, but crucial American values as well. For them,
wilderness stood for something deeply sacred that was in danger of
being lost, so that the movement to protect it was about saving not
just wild nature, but ourselves as well.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(2)
(2)
