The Abstract Wild
by Jack Turner
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If anything is endangered in America it is our experience of wild nature--gross contact. There is knowledge only the wild can give us, knowledge specific to it, knowledge specific to the experience of it. These are its gifts to us. How wild is wilderness and how wild are our experiences in it, asks Jack Turner in the pages of The Abstract Wild. His answer: not very wild. National parks and even so-called wilderness areas fall far short of offering the primal, mystic connection possible in show more wild places. And this is so, Turner avows, because any managed land, never mind what it's called, ceases to be wild. Moreover, what little wildness we have left is fast being destroyed by the very systems designed to preserve it. Natural resource managers, conservation biologists, environmental economists, park rangers, zoo directors, and environmental activists: Turner's new book takes aim at these and all others who labor in the name of preservation. He argues for a new conservation ethic that focuses less on preserving things and more on preserving process and "leaving things be." He takes off after zoos and wilderness tourism with a vengeance, and he cautions us to resist language that calls a tree "a resource" and wilderness "a management unit." Eloquent and fast-paced, The Abstract Wild takes a long view to ask whether ecosystem management isn't "a bit of a sham" and the control of grizzlies and wolves "at best a travesty." Next, the author might bring his readers up-close for a look at pelicans, mountain lions, or Shamu the whale. From whatever angle, Turner stirs into his arguments the words of dozens of other American writers including Thoreau, Hemingway, Faulkner, and environmentalist Doug Peacock. We hunger for a kind of experience deep enough to change our selves, our form of life, writes Turner. Readers who take his words to heart will find, if not their selves, their perspectives on the natural world recast in ways that are hard to ignore and harder to forget. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is a complicated book. The first essays are what I call nature nostalgia, wherein the author writes about this idyllic time in the past, usually the author's childhood/early adulthood, when nature was unspoiled and a veritable Eden. It then goes on to decry the current state of nature. In one essay Turner repeatedly refers to National Parks as amusement parks, and writes, "Yosemite Valley is now more like Coney Island than a wilderness." Which is nonsense.
But later in the book, he expands on the idea a bit, discussing how we currently view nature as a resource to be managed, and how we have turned wildness into wilderness, and manage it as business, just as amusement parks and zoos are managed as businesses.
He has some interesting show more ideas, which I will think about for a long time, but I doubt I'll ever read this book again, and instead will raid its bibliography for new titles. show less
But later in the book, he expands on the idea a bit, discussing how we currently view nature as a resource to be managed, and how we have turned wildness into wilderness, and manage it as business, just as amusement parks and zoos are managed as businesses.
He has some interesting show more ideas, which I will think about for a long time, but I doubt I'll ever read this book again, and instead will raid its bibliography for new titles. show less
Turner's intellect is profound. His views on environmental preservation must be respected and considered. Turner is amazingly well-read, well-traveled, and highly contemplative. I will be thinking about this book until I return to it for a second go round. In the mean time, I will read Peacock, Abbey, Muir, Dillard, etc...
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- Reviews
- 2
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- (4.38)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
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