Donald Worster is Hall Distinguished Professor of American History, University of Kansas and the author of many books, including A River Running West (OUP 2000); The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (OUP 1993); and Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (OUP 1993),
"The record of Muir's life that Worster has scrupulously assembled,
fascinating in its own right, takes on added significance as
Worster sets it in context."--New York Times Book Review
"A wonderful book that celebrates Muir's life and legacy."--San
Francisco Chronicle
"An excellent new biography of John Muir..."--New York Review of
Books
"To write this excellent biography of John Muir, Donald Worster
zealously ransacked the letters and journals of the great,
self-taught naturalist.... This well-written biography reveals a
man whose mission in life was simply to entice people to see
Nature's loveliness."--True West
"With this splendid biography, Donald Worster...reminds us of the
debt we owe John Muir... Mr. Worster's meticulous research and
fluid writing style make A Passion for Nature a model of
biography."--Dallas Morning News
"John Muir's battles to preserve the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite
Park, his founding of the Sierra Club, his final, bitter,
unsuccessful effort to save Hetch Hetchy Valley, his pioneering
insights into the geology of the glacial age, and his late
Victorian combination of religion and pantheism have been
extensively chronicled. What is unique about A Passion for Nature
is the skill with which Worster places Muir in a political context.
Worster helps us
understand how the love of nature is related to other social
movements for equality, that human indifference to the natural
world is morally an example of the oppressive hierarchies that mar
our history." --Carl
Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club
"Donald Worster's A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir is an
engagingly written, adroitly balanced appraisal that places its
subject within the emerging environmental consciousness of the late
19th century. Drawing on a host of letters and journals, Worster, a
highly regarded historian of environmental movements, composes a
complete and completely appealing picture of a more complicated man
than we thought we knew."--Boston Globe
"A towering biography of a towering figure! John Muir is one of
those very few Americans who reshaped the way we saw the world.
This volume, from one of our most eminent historians, makes clear
both the sources and the meaning of Muir's great and wild
epiphany." --Bill McKibben, author of The Bill McKibben Reader
"...this marvelously fluent portrait of the man who sought to
establish 'an ethic of environmental restraint' a century ago and
whose powerful arguments still hold."--Booklist
"Competently documented, this all-inclusive biography explains the
life and times of a figure known to all who love nature and will
appeal to general readers and anyone interested in the early roots
of today's green movement and its founding fathers."--Library
Journal
"Reading Donald Worster's superb new biography...is as close as
history will ever get to understanding what made the
multidimensional Sierra Club founder tick. Yosemite's great bard
bursts through Worster's fine prose in all his cosmic grace and
preservationist pluck."--Douglas Brinkley, Los Angeles Times
"Comprehensive, measured, deeply sympathetic and well balanced, it
is nevertheless provocative, and a great read to boot."--San
Francisco Chronicle Review
"A magnificent account of one of the principal leaders of the
environmental movement in America. This is an engaging and
eautifully written story that illumines the broader sources and
challenges of Muir's passion for nature." --Mary Evelyn Tucker,
Yale University
"As far as the American environment is concerned, few figures have
wielded more influence than John Muir. How appropriate, then, that
one of Americas most noted environmental historians, Donald
Worster, should now present John Muir in all his complexity and
achievement in this authoritative and lively biography." --Kevin
Starr, University of Southern California
"A Passion for Nature is an excellent, readable, engaging piece of
scholarship that should now be considered the definitive biography
of one of America's most influential advocates for
nature."--American Scientist
"America has had no more passionate defender of wild nature than
John Muir, and there is no more passionate chronicler of the
nations environmental past than Donald Worster. We are lucky that
so insightful and eloquent a scholar has now produced a biography
of Muir that will surely be regarded as a benchmark for many years
to come." --William Cronon, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Worster's comprehensive biography of our state's first naturalist
spends as much energy on reconstructing Muir's emotional life as in
recording dates and details. Given the importance of Muir both to
California and to conservation, its a worthy topic."--Sacramento
News & Review
"In A Passion for Nature, Donald Worster provides a beautifully
crafted, richly detailed, and sophisticated biography of
Muir."--Reviews in American History
"Donald Worster is a widely acclaimed environmental historian. In A
Passion for Nature, he tells a deeply human story, delving into
Muir's private, sometimes barely legible writings, while bringing
the complex scientific and political debates of the period to
life."--Times Literary Supplement
"Worster is the leading environmental historian of the American
West and his biography, A Passion for Nature, is definitive....
Highly recommended."--CHOICE
"...Worster provides fresh insights into this seminal figure in
American environmental history... A Passion For Nature is a rich
treatment of Muir's life and thought... Worster is masterful at
placing Muir in content... Worster's biography is a compelling and
essential work."--Oregon Historical Quarterly
"Worster provides fresh insights into this seminal figure in
American environmental history.... A compelling and essential
work."--Mark Harvery, Oregon Historical Quarterly
"Worster has given us a provocative, complicated, and sympathetic
portrait of Muir.... Supporters and critics of Muir will find much
to reckon with here."--Robert M. Wilson, H-Net Reviews
"Few scholars could be better qualified than Worster to assess John
Muir's place in American environmental tradition...Worster
brilliantly recreates Muir and his world in all their complexity."
-- Jackson Lears, The New Republic
"Sierra Club founder John Muir has inspired many books over the
years, but this biography stands out as a scholarly yet readable,
approach..." -- The Green Life (Sierra Club blog)
"Readers of Worster's subtle, layered biography of Muir would do
well to turn its pages slowly and perhaps perambulate for a few
minutes at the end of each chapter...As I savored this book over
several days...I became convinced of Worster's wisdom, embodied by
his decision to let the story of Muir's tangled life - especially
his personal life - suggest the complexity of both the author's and
his subject's 'passion for nature.' " -- Aaron Sachs, American
Historical Review
"A Passion for Nature supplants all earlier Muir biographies and
will undoubtedly stand the test of time for its sophisticated
interpretations and impressive narrative power. Worster manages to
breathe life into the well-worn Muir story, a tribute to his
considerable skill as a writer and historian. This book is a
pleasure to read."--Journal of American History
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