As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, writer and activist Bill McKibben offers this unprecedented, inspiring, and timely anthology gathering the best and most significant American environmental writing from the last two centuries. “Each advance in environmental practice” in our nation’s history, McKibben observes in his introduction, “was preceded by a great book.” Here, for the first time in a single volume, are the words that made a movement.

Classics of the environmental imagination—the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—are set alongside an emerging activist movement, revealed by newly uncovered reports of pioneering campaigns for conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches.

Throughout, some of America’s greatest and most impassioned writers take a turn toward nature, recognizing the fragility of our situation on earth and the urgency of the search for a sustainable way of life. Thought-provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of “nature” join ecologists’ memoirs and intimate sketches of the habitats of endangered species. The anthology includes a detailed chronology of the environmental movement and American environmental history, as well as an 80-page portfolio of illustrations.

• 80 pages of photographs, many in full color
• Same trim size and Smyth-sewn binding used for other Library of America series titles
• Printed on high-quality, acid-free paper

Educators: Download the Teacher’s Guide and explore more resources at the companion website for American Earth.

Bill McKibben, editor, 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 warming in American history. He is scholar in residence at Middlebury College.

The trade edition of American Earth features Smyth-sewn binding, yet it has a dual-laminated, full-color cover that differs from the cloth used for other titles in the series. A limited clothbound printing of this book (in slipcases) is available exclusively to subscribers. Find out how to subscribe here.

Project support for this volume was provided by the Gould Family Foundation.

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau is kept in print by a gift from the Gould Family Foundation to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.