Back American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau

Foreword by Al Gore More

Edited by Bill McKibben

“American Earth 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.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Unique, much-needed . . . If you choose but one environmental book this season, make it American Earth.”
— Booklist (starred review)

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

News Adopt This Book: Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation
January 8, 2024

Story of the Week John Muir, “A Wind-Storm in the Forest”
April 21, 2023

Interviews Anthony Hunt on the collected Gary Snyder: “His poems move us, drive us back to our fundamental roots”
September 6, 2022

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.
News & Views

News Adopt This Book: Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation
January 8, 2024

Story of the Week John Muir, “A Wind-Storm in the Forest”
April 21, 2023

Interviews Anthony Hunt on the collected Gary Snyder: “His poems move us, drive us back to our fundamental roots”
September 6, 2022

Video A Tribute to Gary Snyder
July 21, 2022

Video Rediscovering Rachel Carson: The Oceans, the Climate Crisis, and the “Poet of the Sea”
May 4, 2022
Table of Contents

Al Gore
Foreword

Bill McKibben
Introduction

Henry David Thoreau
From Journals
From Walden; or, Life in the Woods
From Huckleberries

George Catlin
From Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians

Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Fallen Forests

Susan Fenimore Cooper
From Rural Hours
Table Rock Album

Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass:
This Compost
Song of the Redwood-Tree

George Perkins Marsh
From Man and Nature

P. T. Barnum
From The Humbugs of the World

John Muir
From A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
A Wind-Storm in the Forests
From My First Summer in the Sierra
Hetch Hetchy Valley

W.H.H. Murray
From Adventures in the Wilderness

Frederick Law Olmsted
From A Review of Recent Changes, and Changes Which Have Been Projected, in the Plans
of the Central Park

J. Sterling Morton
About Trees

Theodore Roosevelt
To Frank Michler Chapman
To John Burroughs
Speech at Grand Canyon, Arizona, May 6, 1903

Mary Austin
The Scavengers

Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
From Man and the Earth

John Burroughs
The Art of Seeing Things
The Grist of the Gods
Nature Near Home

Gifford Pinchot
Prosperity

William T. Hornaday
The Bird Tragedy on Laysan Island

Theodore Dreiser
A Certain Oil Refinery

Gene Stratton-Porter
The Last Passenger Pigeon

Henry Beston
Orion Rises on the Dunes

Benton MacKaye
The Indigenous and the Metropolitan

J. N. “Ding” Darling
“What a few more seasons will do to the ducks”

Robert Marshall
From Wintertrip into New Country

Don Marquis
what the ants are saying

Caroline Henderson
Letter from the Dust Bowl

Donald Culross Peattie
Birds That Are New Yorkers

Robinson Jeffers
The Answer
Carmel Point

John Steinbeck
From The Grapes of Wrath

Woody Guthrie
This Land Is Your Land

Marjory Stoneman Douglas
From The Everglades: River of Grass

Aldo Leopold
From A Sand County Almanac

Berton Roueché
The Fog

Edwin Way Teale
The Longest Day

Helen and Scott Nearing
From Living the Good Life

Sigurd F. Olson
Northern Lights

E. B. White
Sootfall and Fallout

Loren Eiseley
How Flowers Changed the World

William O. Douglas
From My Wilderness: The Pacific West
Dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton

Jane Jacobs
From The Death and Life of Great America Cities

Rachel Carson
From Silent Spring

Russell Baker
The Great Paver

Eliot Porter
The Living Canyon

Howard Zahniser
From The Wilderness Act of 1964

Lyndon B. Johnson
Remarks at the Signing of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965

Kenneth E. Boulding
From The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth

Lynn White Jr.
On the Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis

Edward Abbey
Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks

Paul R. Ehrlich
From The Population Bomb

Garrett Hardin
From The Tragedy of the Commons

Philip K. Dick
From Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Colin Fletcher
A Sample Day in the Kitchen

R. Buckminster Fuller
Spaceship Earth

Stephanie Mills
Mills College Valedictory Address

Gary Snyder
Smokey the Bear Sutra
Covers the Ground

Denis Hayes
The Beginning

Joseph Lelyveld
Millions Join Earth Day Observances Across the Nation

Joni Mitchell
Big Yellow Taxi

Marvin Gaye
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)

John McPhee
From Encounters with the Archdruid

Friends of the Earth
From Only One Earth

Wendell Berry
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
The Making of a Marginal Farm
Preserving Wildness

Annie Dillard
Fecundity

Lewis Thomas
The World’s Biggest Membrane

David R. Brower
The Third Planet: Operating Instructions

Amory B. Lovins
From Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?

N. Scott Momaday
A First American Views His Land

Leslie Marmon Silko
From Ceremony

R. Crumb
A Short History of America

Wes Jackson
Outside the Solar Village: One Utopian Farm

Lois Marie Gibbs
From Love Canal: My Story

Jonathan Schell
From The Fate of the Earth

William Cronon
Seasons of Want and Plenty

Alice Walker
Everything Is a Human Being

E. O. Wilson
Bernhardsdorp

César Chávez
Wrath of Grapes Boycott Speech

Barry Lopez
A Presentation of Whales

W. S. Merwin
Place

Bill McKibben
From The End of Nature

Robert D. Bullard
From Dumping in Dixie

Mary Oliver
The Summer Day

Terry Tempest Williams
From Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Rick Bass
From The Ninemile Wolves

Alan Durning
The Dubious Rewards of Consumption

Scott Russell Sanders
After the Flood

George B. Schaller
From The Last Panda

Ellen Meloy
The Flora and Fauna of Las Vegas

Linda Hogan
Dwellings

David Abram
From The Ecology of Magic

Jack Turner
The Song of the White Pelican

Carl Anthony & Renée Soule
A Multicultural Approach to Ecopsychology

Al Gore
Speech at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference

Richard Nelson
From Heart and Blood:
Living with Deer in America

David Quammen
Planet of Weeds

Janisse Ray
From Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Julia Butterfly Hill
From The Legacy of Luna

Calvin B. DeWitt
From Inspirations for Sustaining Life on Earth

Sandra Steingraber
From Having Faith

Barbara Kingsolver
Knowing Our Place

Michael Pollan
From The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Paul Hawken
From Blessed Unrest

Rebecca Solnit
The Thoreau Problem
Contributors

Edward Abbey
David Abram
Carl Anthony
Mary Austin
Russell Baker
P.T. Barnum
Rick Bass
Wendell Berry
Henry Beston
Kenneth E. Boulding
David R. Brower
Robert D. Bullard
John Burroughs
Rachel Carson
George Catlin
César Chávez
Susan Fenimore Cooper
William Cronon
R. Crumb
J.N. “Ding” Darling
Calvin DeWitt
Philip K. Dick
Annie Dillard
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
William O. Douglas
Theodore Dreiser
Alan Durning
Paul R. Ehrlich
Loren Eiseley
Colin Fletcher
Friends of the Earth
R. Buckminster Fuller
Marvin Gaye
Lois Marie Gibbs
Al Gore
Woody Guthrie
Garrett Hardin
Paul Hawken
Denis Hayes
Caroline Henderson
Julia Butterfly Hill
Linda Hogan
William T. Hornaday
Wes Jackson
Jane Jacobs
Robinson Jeffers
Lyndon B. Johnson
Barbara Kingsolver
Joseph Lelyveld
Aldo Leopold
Barry Lopez
Amory B. Lovins
Benton MacKaye
Don Marquis
George Perkins Marsh
Robert Marshall
Bill McKibben
John McPhee
Ellen Meloy
W.S. Merwin
Stephanie Mills
Joni Mitchell
N. Scott Momaday
J. Sterling Morton
John Muir
W.H.H. Murray
Helen Nearing
Scott Nearing
Richard Nelson
Mary Oliver
Frederick Law Olmsted
Sigurd F. Olson
Donald Culross Peattie
Gifford Pinchot
Michael Pollan
Eliot Porter
David Quammen
Janisse Ray
Theodore Roosevelt
Berton Roueché
Scott Russell Sanders
George B. Schaller
Jonathan Schell
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Leslie Marmon Silko
Gary Snyder
Rebecca Solnit
Renée Soule
John Steinbeck
Sandra Steingraber
Gene Stratton-Porter
Table Rock Album
Edwin Way Teale
Lewis Thomas
Henry David Thoreau
Jack Turner
Alice Walker
E.B. White
Lynn White Jr.
Walt Whitman
Terry Tempest Williams
Edward O. Wilson
Howard Zahniser

30.00 List Price: $49.95 (Save: 40%) Free shipping on orders $50 and over

Or buy from our partners

Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #201956

ISBN: 978-1-59853-020-9 1078 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 182 Library of America Series

Subscribers can purchase the slipcased edition by signing in to their accounts.

Related Books

Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation LOA N°238

Henry David Thoreau: Collected Essays & Poems LOA N°124

William Bartram: Travels and Other Writings LOA N°84

Henry David Thoreau: A Week, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod LOA N°28

John Muir: Nature Writings LOA N°92

Library of America

CURATOR

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Learn More

PUBLISHER

From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as America’s literary canon.

Browse our books Subscribe

NON-PROFIT

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come.

Support our mission

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau

Related Books

Get 10% off your first Library of America purchase.