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This April 22nd, The Library of America will mark Earth Day 2008 with the first definitive anthology of American environmental writing: AMERICAN EARTH: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (hardcover, $40.00), edited by Bill McKibben with a foreword by Al Gore.

Every important advance in American environmentalism, according to writer and activist Bill McKibben, has coincided with sprung from some piece of writing, some book. We cant afford those voices to die out.  Now, as America and the world grapple with global ecological challenges, McKibben offers an unprecedented and timely anthology gathering the best that has been thought and said about the interconnectedness of the natural world, our place in it, and our responsibility to it.  Touchstones of the environmental imagination the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring are set alongside the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered narratives of pioneering campaigns for wilderness conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. 

Here are some of Americas greatest and most impassioned writers whose urgent search for a sustainable way of life created a tradition of writing, thinking and activism of defining important to our country and the world.  Thought provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of nature  join an ecologist s memoirs and intimate sketches of the habits of endangered species.  George Catlin witnesses the sublime spectacle of a bison herd; Theodore Roosevelt makes a stirring speech at the edge of the Grand Canyon; E.B. White and Jonathan Schell address the hazards of the nuclear age; David Quammen describes catastrophic losses to the earths biodiversity; Rick Bass celebrates the return of the wolf to Yosemite.  Lyrics by Joni Mitchell and writings by Barbara Kingsolver, Barry Lopez, Michael Pollan and other contemporary authors/activists add a particular sense of urgency to the volume. This unrivaled collection features an 80- page color portfolio of images, biographical notes on the writers, and a detailed chronology of American environmentalism and American environmental history.

Log on to the books companion website for more information: www.americanearth.org

Editor Bill McKibben is the author of many books including The End of Nature (1989), the first account of global warming for a general audience, and most recently Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007).  Since 2006, he has organized the largest demonstrations against the causes of global climate change in American history.  He is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.

Beginning its second quarter century in 2008, The Library of America (www.loa.org) is an award-winning nonprofit publisher dedicated to preserving Americas best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts.  Hailed as the most important book-publishing project in the nations history (Newsweek), this acclaimed series now features over 180 volumes.

American Earth:  Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
The Library of America
April 22, 2008
Hardcover $40.00
ISBN:  978-1-59853-020-9

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As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, The Library of America is pleased to announce the publication of American Earth:  Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, an unprecedented and provocative anthology of the very best of 175 years of American writing about the natural world, our place in it, and our responsibilities for it. 

This inspiring volume, edited by renowned environmental writer, scholar and activist Bill McKibben, will be published for Earth Day, April 22, and features 1,000 pages of great writing, 80 pages of illustrations and photography, and a foreword by former Vice President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore.

A companion website, AmericanEarth.org, will debut on March 24, featuring interviews with some of American Earth’s contributors, book excerpts, videos, an interactive timeline of American environmental history, and a contest inviting readers to submit essays and images of their thoughts, activities, and events inspired by the book.  For a preview of the book and website, please visit www.americanearth.org.

“From the beginning,” writes McKibben in his introduction, “American writing has concerned itself with the story of people and the natural world.”  Beginning with Henry David Thoreau’s 1837 Journals, American Earth takes readers on a journey through American history up to 2007 (with Rebecca Solnit’s article, “The Thoreau Problem.”)  Along the way, the seminal writings of such visionary figures as John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson are joined by more contemporary pieces by Michael Pollan, Paul Hawken, and Barbara Kingsolver. Encompassing essays, political and protest speeches, legal arguments, song lyrics, poetry and fiction, American Earth reflects a remarkable range of literary, cultural, historical, and philosophical perspectives on the American landscape and people.  McKibben’s commentary on the selections provides rich historical context to the environmental challenges making headlines today, such as global warming, wilderness and marine protection, sprawl, toxic pollution, and the urban environment. 

More examples of the remarkable diversity of writing and thinking included here are:

• John Steinbeck, from his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath
• Theodore Roosevelt’s stirring 1903 speech at the Grand Canyon
• Phillip K. Dick (from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
• Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas’s 1965 landmark legal dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton
• Marvin Gaye, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”
• Cesar Chavez (Grapes of Wrath Boycott Speech)
• Edward Abbey (“Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks”)
• Robert D. Bullard (from Dumping in Dixie)
• Barry Lopez (“A Presentation of Whales”) 

and much, much more.

As Al Gore writes in his foreword to American Earth, “Taken together, these essays, poems, cartoons, and speeches show how our country’s attitude toward nature has developed and changed from Thoreau’s time to our own.”

Early acclaim for American Earth has been enthusiastic:

Beginning its second quarter century in 2008, The Library of America (www.loa.org) is an award-winning nonprofit publisher dedicated to preserving America’s best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts.  Hailed as “the most important book-publishing project in the nation’s history” (Newsweek), this acclaimed series now features over 180 volumes.

For more information, or to obtain press materials for American Earth, contact our publicity department

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