A portrait of the modern environmental movement
The twentieth-century environmental movement owes much to a single man: David Brower. Countless natural wonders would have been lost if not for his efforts and the tremendous energy put forth by organizations he directed and/or founded (including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the Earth Island Institute). A tireless defender of wild areas, Brower worked to protect iconic places, including the Grand Canyon and the California redwood forests, and his work and passion helped define modern environmentalism.
For the hundredth anniversary of David Brower's birth, his son Kenneth Brower, an acclaimed nature writer, has brought together the testimonies of twenty environmental leaders whose lives and careers were transformed by David Brower; the result is a book in which a repertory company of path-forgers reveal their deepest values and most moving experiences. Reading like an adventure novel told by the intrepid folks who rode alongside Brower, The Wildness Within presents illuminating anecdotes about a multifaceted man who changed the world, serving as a guide to young people and a bane to bureaucrats and others more cautious in their approach to the crises at hand.
Contributors include:
Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb
Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First!
Harold Gilliam, former San Francisco Chronicle environmental columnist
Paul Hawken, founder of Smith and Hawken, and coauthor of Natural Capitalism
Randall Hayes, founder of The Rainforest Action Network
Huey Johnson, pioneer environmentalist and founder of the Trust for Public Land
Amory Lovins, author of Reinventing Fire
Nancy Skinner, coauthor of 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth
Kenneth David Brower is the oldest son of the pioneering environmentalist David Brower. His first memories are of the Sierra Nevada and the wild country of the American West. His father drafted him into service as an editor at nineteen, and under that leadership he wrote or edited fourteen volumes in the Exhibit-Format Series of photography books produced by the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. In his mid-twenties he departed his father's shop to become a freelance writer, and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, Audubon, National Geographic, Canadian Geographic, The Paris Review, Reader's Digest, Smithsonian, Sierra, Islands, and numerous other magazines. He is the author of the books The Starship and the Canoe, Wake of the Whale, A Song for Satawal, Realms of the Sea, The Winemaker's Marsh, Freeing Keiko, and many more. He lives in Berkeley, California.
