The Trouble with Wilderness

by William Cronon

William Cronon published a number of versions of this essay, each aimed at a different audience. This version comes from the New York Times (1995); another version appears as the introduction to a book Cronon edited, "Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature" (1995), a collection of essays on the environment.

Cronon, Wiliam. "The Trouble with Wilderness." 1995. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. Ed. Melissa A. Goldthwaite et al. 14th ed. New York: Norton, 2016. 550-53. Print.

Genres: Essays, History, Environment, Nonfiction, Theory, School, Nature

4 pages, Essay

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

William "Bill" Cronon is a noted environmental historian, and the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was president of the American Historical Association (AHA) in 2012.

Reviews

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

my dude's got a point

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads, there is no way this is four pages. It's much longer.

[Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, the perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world."

[Hal Incandenza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for my college class and I think it's a pretty great essay on the danger of romanticizing the idea of wilderness.

[anomarsly · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is one of the most impactful texts i have ever read and it will stick with me for the rest of my life. this is crazy

[Hannah Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ohhhhhh brother is there trouble! Also sanctity? Also poor people can’t enjoy nature like rich people can….?? Okay… interesting read

[Erika S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today, we so often glorify Nature and the Wilderness today as pristine, beautiful, often relaxing places where we experience various adventures, but how we view the Wilderness has changed drastically over the centuries.

[Min · Rating 5 out of 5]

this guy gets it !

[blanca · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The task of making a home in nature is what Wendell Berry has called “the forever unfinished lifework of our species.” “The only thing we have to preserve nature with” he writes, “is culture; the only thing we have to preserve wildness with is domesticity.” Calling a place home inevitably means that we will use the nature we find in it, for there can be no escape from manipulating and working and even killing some parts of nature to make our home. But if we acknowledge the autonomy and otherness of the things and creatures around us—an autonomy our culture has taught us to label with the word “wild”—then we will at least think carefully about the uses to which we put them, and even ask if we should use them at all. just so can we still join Thoreau in declaring that “in Wildness is the preservation of the World,” for wildness (as opposed to wilderness) can be found anywhere: in the seemingly tame fields and woodlots of Massachusetts, in the cracks of a Manhattan sidewalk, even in the cells of our own bodies. As Gary Snyder has wisely said, “A person with a clear heart and open mind can experience the wilderness anywhere on earth. It is a quality of one’s own consciousness. The planet is a wild place and always will be.” To think ourselves capable of causing “the end of nature” is an act of great hubris, for it means forgetting the wildness that dwells everywhere within and around us."

[Kendall Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

i need you to understand, dear reader, that this piece of literature genuinely changed the trajectory of my life. i read this freshman year of college and it legitimately changed the way i thought about, viewed, and wrote about the natural world and nature. i tell every person that is even remotely interested in nature/the environment/"the great outdoors" to read this. mr. william cronon i hope you see this review because you, kind sir, are truly one of my favorite environmental academics. i've read a fair amount of cronon's works but this one in particular was EXTREMELY influential for me. 5/5, 10/10 cannot recommend enough, especially for the budding (and even the experienced) environmentalist.

[Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

insightful, life-changing, mind-opening. any environmentalist, environmental historian, or person who owns a plant should read this NOW or suffer 10,000 deaths

[Abbie O'Hara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent way to challenge thinking of “wilderness”

[Vaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

ur wild cronon

[blue_lotus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yay, wilderness! Boo, wilderness? Is wilderness wilderness? Find out in this next installment of Guess What America Made Up!

[Luke Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

My FAVOURITE essay ever good god this is such an incredible paper I recommend this to everyone I know

[Bradley St. L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life-altering essay

[pj · Rating 5 out of 5]

okay i usually don’t log the individual essays that we read for class because it’s tedious and there are so many.

HOWEVER

this entire essay was just one Hot Take about the elitist definition of the idea of “wilderness” and i loved it