An Open Letter to Roderick Nash on Island Civilization

Nash frequently condemns humans by destroying wounds of nature and the earth. This may be true, but Nash estimates the self-healing capabilities of the earth. Humans alone can not harm the earth. When you really think about it, the Earth has experienced many unruly natural disasters. According to activist Tim Haering, "The tsunami, floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, forest fires, and diseases are more than killing each other." The Earth has all these natural ways to destroy what hurt it I will cast a disaster.

In 1967, Roderick Nash announced the "Wilderness and the American Heart" that became a classic text of early environmental history. In a speech by the American Historian Organization in 1969 (published in 1970), Nash used the expression "environmental history", 1972 was often considered the date of the first creation of a word. In 1959, Samuel P. Hayes' book, "The Gospel of Preservation and Efficiency: Progressive Protection Movement", 1890-1920, has greatly contributed to the political history of the United States, but now, in the field of environmental history in the field of environmental history It is also considered. Hayes is professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh.

In historical literature on preservation, revolutionary work is the wilderness of Roderick Nash and American Mind (1967; 4 th Edition, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). First, Nash believes Americans believe that undeveloped forests and fields are wastelands. But by the mid-nineteenth century a few artists and writers began celebrating the undeveloped countryside as a source of romantic civilization and public pride. Then the rise of industrial cities and the closure of the border prompted people to appreciate seemingly original landscapes. The result was a series of preservation activities that ultimately passed the Wilderness Act of 1964. In order to track changes in thinking about the wilderness, Nash focused on pioneering thinkers such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldolipoort. But he also considered mass culture and legislative struggle.