The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology

by Max Oelschlaeger

How has the concept of wild nature changed over the millennia? And what have been the environmental consequences? In this broad-ranging book Max Oelschlaeger argues that the idea of wilderness has reflected the evolving character of human existence from Paleolithic times to the present day. An intellectual history, it draws together evidence from philosophy, anthropology, theology, literature, ecology, cultural geography, and archaeology to provide a new scientifically and philosophically informed understanding of humankind’s relationship to nature. Oelschlaeger begins by examining the culture of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, whose totems symbolized the idea of organic unity between humankind and wild nature, and idea that the author believes is essential to any attempt to define human potential. He next traces how the transformation of these hunter-gatherers into farmers led to a new awareness of distinctions between humankind and nature, and how Hellenism and Judeo-Christianity later introduced the unprecedented concept that nature was valueless until humanized. Oelschlaeger discusses the concept of wilderness in relation to the rise of classical science and modernism, and shows that opposition to “modernism” arose almost immediately from scientific, literary, and philosophical communities. He provides new and, in some cases, revisionist studies of the seminal American figures Thoreau, Muir, and Leopold, and he gives fresh readings of America’s two prodigious wilderness poets Robinson Jeffers and Gary Snyder. He concludes with a searching look at the relationship of evolutionary thought to our postmodern effort to reconceptualize ourselves as civilized beings who remain, in some ways, natural animals.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nature, Nonfiction, Environment, Wilderness, Ecology

489 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tired to read this book when it first came out, but put it down. Perhaps I found some of the early thoughts on pre-agricultural thought just a little too easy? But I'm not sure. I might not have known enough then about postmodern thinkers to follow Oelschlaeger. It sat on the shelf for 28 years and then I took it with me to an Artist-in-Residence appointment at Isle Royale, our National Park with the Wilderness Designation. This time it clicked, and I read it slowly and carefully.

First it is worth noting that the book is a bit dated. There is almost no reference to climate change for instance, and the change implied by that in the relationship between man and wilderness. Also, although he discusses some of the early work on ecofeminism, those ideas have become much more important, even dominant, than they were then.

Still, the way he traces the development of thought in the West, through the Great Mother cults of the paleolithic (which, of course, has to be informed guesswork), through the Neolithic to the Attic and Judeo-Christian is useful. But he becomes more passionate when he arrives at the "modern" -- Descartes and Bacon, and their break between nature and culture. That break defines much of the book until he arrives at the figures he thinks try to restore the connections -- Thoreau, Muir, Leopold (very interesting to see Leopold in this philosophic context. And I am totally convinced), to the major environmental poets -- Jeffers and Snyder. Jeffers becomes the voice of despair, and Snyder one of hope that we might find a way to make the connections.

All in all, this is some passionate thinking, sometimes demanding, about absolutely important questions.

[Wynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are not a part of nature, we are nature. In the first sections of his book, Oelschlaeger provides a convincing backstory that results in a rationale for how we have come to live as if we are not connected to the natural world. If you are interested in the relationship of humans and the landscape, you might want to give this book serious consideration.

[T.R. Ormond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a giant work. I cannot do justice to it here.

Oelschlaeger's purpose is to trace and shed the errors we perpetrated after our seduction by Modernity. Environmentalism is not enough, for it assumes that there is an 'environment.' It is precisely this Cartesian tendency, to view the world as something outside of us, that is the problem.

He also proposes a new spirituality, a new cosmology. It is in no way related to the Judeo-Christian model. Those religions accompanied our emergence out from the world and into agriculture. Those religions justify using the environment and taming it.

I'm only beginning to become acquainted with the ideas of deep ecology, but I think Oelschlaeger's book belongs with that stream of thought, or at least complements it nicely.

[Michael Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down the best overview of the field of ecology that I’ve ever read. This book covers it all!

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all time, this excellent study shows the development of the idea of Nature from the Greeks and Hebrews through the present, with some specific individual chapters on such luminaries as Thoreau, Jeffers and Snyder. I really can't recommend this book more highly to anyone interested in why Nature has become such an important trope in Western thinking over the past 200 or so years, and particularly in the last 40 or so.

[Sukhmani · Rating 4 out of 5]

A (very!) thorough critique of wilderness and the great nature writers-- Muir, Leopold, Thoreau, and Emerson-- that will open any ecopsychologist's mind to the dividing factors between their theories and what modernity and post constructivism impose on current perspectives. Prerequisites for this book would be The Earth has a Soul, A Sand County Almanac, Wilderness and the American Mind, and either Travels in Alaska or A Thousand Miles to the Gulf.

[KA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read only the early chapters, which deal with the Paleolithic era and "Early Mediterranean Ideas." Oelschlaeger relies on some highly problematic biblical scholarship (like the Frankforts) but also some good stuff (Gottwald). A mixed bag, with lots of interesting ideas and, I am certain, good insight into modern stuff.

[Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES