The Great New Wilderness Debate

by J. Baird Callicott (Editor)

The Great New Wilderness Debate is an expansive, wide-ranging collection that addresses the pivotal environmental issues of the modern era. This eclectic volume on the varied constructions of “wilderness” reveals the recent controversies that surround those conceptions, and the gulf between those who argue for wilderness "preservation" and those who argue for "wise use." J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson have selected thirty-nine essays that provide historical context, range broadly across the issues, and set forth the positions of the debate. Beginning with such well-known authors as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold, the collection moves forward to the contemporary debate and presents seminal works by a number of the most distinguished scholars in environmental history and environmental philosophy. The Great New Wilderness Debate also includes essays by conservation biologists, cultural geographers, environmental activists, and contemporary writers on the environment.

Genres: Environment, Nature, Nonfiction, Wilderness, Preservation, Philosophy, Outdoors

697 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

J. Baird Callicott is an American philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is a University Distinguished Research Professor and a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies and the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas. Callicott held the position of Professor of Philosophy and Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point from 1969 to 1995, where he taught the world’s first course in environmental ethics in 1971. From 1994 to 2000, he served as Vice President then President of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. Other distinguished positions include visiting professor of philosophy at Yale University; the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of Hawai’i; and the University of Florida.

Reviews

[Tomek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marathon to be sure, this anthology assessments the concept of wilderness from a number of perspectives: legal, scientific, philosophical, historical, literary, etc. I commend the editors for compiling a well-rounded view of wilderness. It would have been easy to over-represent their own views on the subject, but they were even-handed and judicious in their selections. Individuals who only have a passing interest in the subject may have a tough time getting through it, but the concepts it lays out are critical to better understanding the problems and successes of wilderness in broader conservation management strategies. Unsurprisingly, I think most people who finish will come away with a somewhat tempered view of the subject, regardless on which end of the spectrum they began. If you are an ardent preservationist (a la Muir), I suspect you will better understand the social and ecological problems that arise from the dualism that is inherent in the traditional wilderness idea. Alternatively, if you support a more wise-use view of environmental management (a la Pinchot), you will hopefully be convinced that wilderness and strict preservation is still an essential element of a sustainable and ecologically effective conservation strategy. I look forward to reading the updated 2008 version.

[Ľuboš · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably one of the two best anthologies, I've ever held in my hands, regardless the theme (the second is, unsurprisingly, its successor: The Wilderness Debate Rages On: Continuing the Great New Wilderness Debate). That's partly because the editors did an amazing job of selecting the most relevant and interesting articles and organizing them into logical and convenient system, and partly because of an excellent introduction in which they go through the collection and article by article describe the main points of the respective texts and set them in context of the other ones. This latter point should not be taken lightly - it helps the reader tremendously with orienting in this rather extensive collection (see the page count!) and selecting the right article he/she find most useful. Just by reading the introduction the reader gets a fair picture of the debate going on in both the academic field and in practice.