Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Told through the prism of a tragic death in Yellowstone, an epic account of our century-long attempt to control the American wilderness
In 1972, 25-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone. The ensuing civil trial brought to the fore longstanding, high-stakes debates about wilderness management. In this remarkable excavation of American environmental history, acclaimed writer and former park ranger Jordan Fisher Smith weaves the story of Walker's tragic death into the larger narrative of our attempts to remake wilderness in the name of preservation. Moving across decades and among Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, and Sequoia National Parks, Engineering Eden shows how efforts to manage wilderness are always undone by one fundamental problem: The idea of what is "natural" dissolves as soon as we begin to examine it.