Reviews
People often say that environmental activism is only now getting the attention it deserves. This
indispensable anthology of environmental writings shows that the American drive to protect our
environment spans more than a century and a half. From Henry David Thoreau to Teddy Roosevelt to Bill
McKibben himself, this movement has been growing for as long as Americans have known the beauty of our
great country. During my time at EPA, I tried to make decisions that embodied the passion for our
environment expressed by these writers, and, thanks to American Earth, I know
their passion will continue inspiring Americans to protect our country for generations to come.
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
(1993-2001)
In his introduction to this superb anthology, McKibben (The End of Nature)
proposes that "environmental writing is America's most distinctive contribution to the world's
literature." The collected pieces amply prove the point. Arranged chronologically, McKibben’s
selection of more than 100 writers includes some of the great early conservationists, such as Henry
David Thoreau, John Muir and John Burroughs, and many other eloquent nature writers, including Donald
Culross Peattie, Edwin Way Teale and Henry Beston. The early exponents of national parks and wilderness
areas have their say, as do writers who have borne witness to environmental degradation—John
Steinbeck and Caroline Henderson on the dust bowl, for example, and Berton Roueché and others who
have reported on the effects of toxic pollution. Visionaries like Buckminster Fuller and Amory Lovins
are represented, as are a wealth of contemporary activist/writers, among them Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest
Williams, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollan, Paul Hawken, and Calvin deWitt, cofounder of the
Evangelical Environmental Network. McKibben's trenchant introductions to the pieces sum up each writer's
thoughts and form a running commentary on the progress of the conservation movement. The book, being
published on Earth Day, can be read as a survey of the literature of American environmentalism, but
above all, it should be enjoyed for the sheer beauty of the writing.
(2/4/08)
Environmental writing, McKibben explains in his introduction to this unique, much needed
anthology, “subsumes and goes beyond” nature writing and takes as its subject “the
collision between people and the rest of the world.” An important environmental writer himself,
McKibben has selected works by expected seminal figures, beginning with Thoreau, always startling in his
prescience and sure-footed clarity, and moving on to Muir, Leopold, and Carson. But he also includes
George Perkins Marsh, whose Man and Nature (1864) was the “first major
work of scientific environmentalism”; landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted; and song lyrics
by Joni Mitchell. McKibben devotes most of the volume to writers of the last quarter-century, such as
Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, and Michael Pollan, who have focused on increasingly urgent
environmental dilemmas that affect every aspect of our daily lives. In his foreword, Nobel laureate Al
Gore (his 1997 speech at the Kyoto Climate Change conference is included) observes, “a truth
eloquently expressed has an influence greater than any elected official,” while McKibben hopes
that the eloquence of these 100 pioneering environmentalists “will spur not only reflection but
action as well.” If you had to choose but one environmental book this season, make it American Earth.
Booklist
(2/15/08)
