- Author : Jack Turner
- Binding : Paperback
- Dewey Decimal Number : 508
- EAN : 9780816516995
- ISBN : 0816516995
- Is Eligible For Trade In? : Yes
- Label : University of Arizona Press
- List Price : $17.95 (USD)
- Manufacturer : University of Arizona Press
- Number Of Items : 1
- Number Of Pages : 136
- Package Dimensions : 0.50 inches (Height) x 9.20 inches (Length) x 0.55 pounds (Weight) x 5.50 inches (Width)
- Publication Date : 1996-09-01
- Publisher : University of Arizona Press
- Studio : University of Arizona Press
Much contemporary environmental literature names as enemies of the wild corporate agriculture, logging, mining, and ranching. For mountain guide/philosopher Jack Turner, these will not do. He dislikes even more the abstractions that divorce us from the natural world, which cause us to create pseudo-wild locales like Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon, places that resemble nothing so much as Disneyland. Wilderness advocates who do not make themselves at home in the wild, he believes, cannot hope to understand the object of their desires, for only from that "complete immersion in place over time" can there arise the "wisdom that cannot emerge from tourism in a relic wilderness." This sometimes blistering, provocative book is an eco-radical manifesto of a kind, and every reader concerned with wilderness issues should pay attention to it.
- Amazon.com Review
If anything is endangered in America it is our experience of wild nature--gross contact. There is knowledge only the wild can give us, knowledge specific to it, knowledge specific to the experience of it. These are its gifts to us. How wild is wilderness and how wild are our experiences in it, asks Jack Turner in the pages of The Abstract Wild. His answer: not very wild. National parks and even so-called wilderness areas fall far short of offering the primal, mystic connection possible in wild places. And this is so, Turner avows, because any managed land, never mind what it's called, ceases to be wild. Moreover, what little wildness we have left is fast being destroyed by the very systems designed to preserve it. Natural resource managers, conservation biologists, environmental economists, park rangers, zoo directors, and environmental activists: Turner's new book takes aim at these and all others who labor in the name of preservation. He argues for a new conservation ethic that focuses less on preserving things and more on preserving process and "leaving things be." He takes off after zoos and wilderness tourism with a vengeance, and he cautions us to resist language that calls a tree "a resource" and wilderness "a management unit." Eloquent and fast-paced, The Abstract Wild takes a long view to ask whether ecosystem management isn't "a bit of a sham" and the control of grizzlies and wolves "at best a travesty." Next, the author might bring his readers up-close for a look at pelicans, mountain lions, or Shamu the whale. From whatever angle, Turner stirs into his arguments the words of dozens of other American writers including Thoreau, Hemingway, Faulkner, and environmentalist Doug Peacock. We hunger for a kind of experience deep enough to change our selves, our form of life, writes Turner. Readers who take his words to heart will find, if not their selves, their perspectives on the natural world recast in ways that are hard to ignore and harder to forget.
- Product Description
Customer Reviews:
Customers rated The Abstract Wild 5.0 stars out of 5.0 based on 18 reviews:A Voice that needs to be heard
by Traveler (Cody, WY USA) - 2009-07-05
This book takes a radical view on the whole question of saving our natural environments. Turner argues that they are our wild nature, not to be controlled, managed, studied, recreated in. He talks about the 'fun hog' as the typical way we interact with the natural world. What we are losing is a deep part of ourselves, our soul, our sacredness, something ancient, where people once lived in nature, we now rarely even spend a few days. Jack Turner makes a passionate and personal argument for wildness (vs. wilderness). I loved this book. It spoke my thoughts in an eloquent way.grizzly therapy?
by Ted Byrd - 2008-06-28
I would have probably given this collection of essays 5 stars as the other reviewers did if not for the essay about Doug Peacock. Seeking to heal the psychic wounds of The Vietnam War, Peacock sought relief in the wild. An encounter at close range with a grizzly in which he seemed to come to an "understanding" with the bear brought such a catharsis that he began to actively seek them out. If Peacock was able to do this,good for him! But I am reminded of the gruesome fate of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend who tried to be friends with bears. It seems mistaken to advocate this kind of do-it-yourself therapy with ferocious predators as exemplifying a reason for preserving the wild. It also seems to contradict the desired goal of setting aside territory where Nature can manifest itself in its own way without human interference. This episode and references to shamanism give a cultic cast to the book which doesn't seem to me to further the message of preservation. The writing is quite good,charged with an emotional appeal. I thought the final essay was the best.It was a thoughtful presentation of scientific and philosophical reasons why humans need to protect a large portion of the earth from themselves,where Nature can operate on its own terms.Intense, passionate, provacative.
by Kyle Gardner (American West) - 2008-01-03
This is a must read! A series of stimulating and well-written essays centering on a common theme: how wildness (once but no longer the essence of wilderness) has been mediated, micromanaged, and abstracted nearly out of existence. Turner's polemic focuses on the abstractions that divorce us from the natural world, which cause us to create pseudo-wild places like Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon, places that resemble nothing so much as a theme park. This book is radical (read: essential) environmentalism at its best and effectively reconnects the modern perspective to the passionate roots of Henry David Thoreau. Anyone concerned with preserving (much less revitalizing) the wild and wilderness, particularly in these dire times, should take Turner's ideas into account. By Kyle Gardner, author of Medicine Rock ReflectionsA Compelling Read
by Earl Ripley (West Coast) - 2007-11-07
Jack Turner sheds light on issues most people care too little about, in this most philosophical of his books. This is food for deep thought. Definitely worth reading more than once.an exact and perfect plea
by robert merrick (solano county, california) - 2007-03-27
consider this fact about the USA - 13 (now 14)have reviewed this book in this forum - and all have declared that this book, against almost all other books regarding the environment, and specifically, wildness, comes the closest to expressing their own hearts, if not before reading it, then because of reading it - yet we are force fed through the mass media that americans are gluttonous and rapacious - well as it turns out, no - just a handful are- and that handful has all of the money and all of the guns. the landlady, dear readers, IS strangling our cat.
Your Opinion Counts: