A Word for Nature: Four Pioneering Environmental Advocates, 1845-1913

The careers and ideas of four figures of monumental importance in the history of American conservation — George Perkins Marsh, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Wesley Powell — are explored in A Word for Nature. Robert Dorman offers lively portraits of each of these early environmental advocates, who witnessed firsthand the impact of economic expansion and industrial revolution on fragile landscapes from the forests of New England to the mountains of the West.
By examining the ninetee...