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John Muir: Rediscovering America
In his stirring biography, Frederick Turner, the distinguished writer and cultural historian, captures the legendary scale of the life of an American icon. Immigrant, inventor, botanist, and founder of the conservation movement, John Muir (1838-1914) truly led those of his time-and now ours-to rediscover the natural beauty of this land. From his harsh childhood in Scotland and on a Wisconsin pioneer farm, to his rugged, solitary explorations all over America and especially in the Sierras, to his passionate battle, in person and in his writings, to save and celebrate our wilderness, Muir was a heroic figure. Turner's biography is every bit as monumental and inspiring as its subject.
432 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 19, 2016
The story of John Muir is so amazing and inspiring. He was an integral part of early efforts to preserve Yosemite. Every one with a love of the outdoors, should know more about this early wanderer, nature lover, and preservationist. This biography was long but gives an overview, not just of Muir's life, but of conservation history. Those of us who are inspired by treasured landscapes of America owe Muir and those like him a great debt.
June 8, 2026
This book is the best biography I have read of pioneering naturalist John Muir. Muir spent most of his youth on a hardscrabble farm in Wisconsin under the thumb of a tyrannical and narcissistic father. When Muir finally broke free in his early 20s, he was hardworking, intelligent, and mechanically gifted. However, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, and to my mind at least seemed emotionally numbed from what he had endured. None of this was surprising for a young man with Muir's life experiences.
Muir rambled about for several years, working in machine shops in the Upper Midwest and Canada, attending the University of Wisconsin without really seeking a degree, and taking a long walk through the American South to see its flora and fauna.
In 1868, at the age of 30, Muir saw the Yosemite Valley for the first time and the course of his life was set. Muir supported himself at various times as a sheepherder and as a handyman at the first hotel in Yosemite. However, he found time to absorb the mountain air, do original scientific research, primarily in the field of glaciology, servedas a guide for Ralph Waldo Emerson, pioneering nineteenth century scientist Louis Aggasiz, and others, and begin writing.
Muir eventually married and went into business with his father in law, who owned a large fruit farm near the Pacific coast. With his work ethic and aptitude for making and fixing things expanded the operation and made it ever more successful over the years. However, he always found time for rambling through the mountains of California, and as an old man also visited the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Muir was born during an era of great industrial expansion, and with his mechanical aptitude it's not difficult to imagine him becoming a successful industrialist himself. However, that was not the goal he pursued. When Muir was an old man, he wrote that he never consciously rebelled against the dominant ethos of the age. However, the restrictiveness of his early years left him feeling unconnected and adrift, and ironically made him freer to follow his own star than otherwise would have been the case.
Although the author does not explicitly say so, Muir appears to have grown up in what now would be called a narcissistic family. As an adult, he frequently told friends of the circumstances of his youth. My inference is that he simply wanted people to understand who he was, an understanding which is difficult for scapegoat children to impart. However, he never let bitterness take over his soul. In 1885, he felt a sudden premonition about his father, immediately bought a train ticket to Kansas City where his parents were living, and nursed his father and held his hand through his final illness.
One final note: Frederick Turner was the author ofthis book. The Sierra Club merely published it. The person who added it to Goodreads apparently hit the wrong button when filling out the listing.
Muir rambled about for several years, working in machine shops in the Upper Midwest and Canada, attending the University of Wisconsin without really seeking a degree, and taking a long walk through the American South to see its flora and fauna.
In 1868, at the age of 30, Muir saw the Yosemite Valley for the first time and the course of his life was set. Muir supported himself at various times as a sheepherder and as a handyman at the first hotel in Yosemite. However, he found time to absorb the mountain air, do original scientific research, primarily in the field of glaciology, servedas a guide for Ralph Waldo Emerson, pioneering nineteenth century scientist Louis Aggasiz, and others, and begin writing.
Muir eventually married and went into business with his father in law, who owned a large fruit farm near the Pacific coast. With his work ethic and aptitude for making and fixing things expanded the operation and made it ever more successful over the years. However, he always found time for rambling through the mountains of California, and as an old man also visited the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Muir was born during an era of great industrial expansion, and with his mechanical aptitude it's not difficult to imagine him becoming a successful industrialist himself. However, that was not the goal he pursued. When Muir was an old man, he wrote that he never consciously rebelled against the dominant ethos of the age. However, the restrictiveness of his early years left him feeling unconnected and adrift, and ironically made him freer to follow his own star than otherwise would have been the case.
Although the author does not explicitly say so, Muir appears to have grown up in what now would be called a narcissistic family. As an adult, he frequently told friends of the circumstances of his youth. My inference is that he simply wanted people to understand who he was, an understanding which is difficult for scapegoat children to impart. However, he never let bitterness take over his soul. In 1885, he felt a sudden premonition about his father, immediately bought a train ticket to Kansas City where his parents were living, and nursed his father and held his hand through his final illness.
One final note: Frederick Turner was the author ofthis book. The Sierra Club merely published it. The person who added it to Goodreads apparently hit the wrong button when filling out the listing.
January 23, 2023
Incredible writing about an incredible man who led a more than incredible life!
August 29, 2016
This book had been on the shelf for a long time, but after watching the PBS show about Muir, I was impressed enough to pick it up again.
The biographer, like most I suppose, writes of Muir's feelings as though they were knowable. This license allows the narration to proceed through the subject of the biography, but it can test one's belief of what was felt, or understood by the subject.
This is fine, so long as the writing is up to fiction-quality, and sometimes it is. Writing about Muir's exposure to the Civil War, Turner offers this take on Muir's sensibility:
"Beyond these sights and the faces there was the felt presence of those hundreds of thousands whose lives had been violently cut off. Sitting in Bonaventure Cemetery amidst the tombs, the trees, and the waving mosses, he could hardly have escaped confronting this great, central fact and its corollary: that he was alive. Whatever else the war had been, whatever else it might have meant -- a senseless game like his own Dunbar schoolyard battles, as Muir may have thought it; the amputation of a cancerous member of the body politic, as Emerson thought; or something altogether other, as it might prove -- the central fact of it was death, death on an unprecedented scale" (p. 143-144).
Published first in 1985, this is a lengthy work that will require more than couple of days to read.
I appreciated the lengthy "Notes on Sources," which went on from pp. 352-395. This project was no doubt a massive undertaking -- and without Mendeley and Google Scholar.
The biographer, like most I suppose, writes of Muir's feelings as though they were knowable. This license allows the narration to proceed through the subject of the biography, but it can test one's belief of what was felt, or understood by the subject.
This is fine, so long as the writing is up to fiction-quality, and sometimes it is. Writing about Muir's exposure to the Civil War, Turner offers this take on Muir's sensibility:
"Beyond these sights and the faces there was the felt presence of those hundreds of thousands whose lives had been violently cut off. Sitting in Bonaventure Cemetery amidst the tombs, the trees, and the waving mosses, he could hardly have escaped confronting this great, central fact and its corollary: that he was alive. Whatever else the war had been, whatever else it might have meant -- a senseless game like his own Dunbar schoolyard battles, as Muir may have thought it; the amputation of a cancerous member of the body politic, as Emerson thought; or something altogether other, as it might prove -- the central fact of it was death, death on an unprecedented scale" (p. 143-144).
Published first in 1985, this is a lengthy work that will require more than couple of days to read.
I appreciated the lengthy "Notes on Sources," which went on from pp. 352-395. This project was no doubt a massive undertaking -- and without Mendeley and Google Scholar.
January 14, 2012
This is a very readable biography about a true American original. While he did write books he hated the process, and his most lasting legacy is a place I only first visited about six years ago even though I am a native Californian, and that is Yosemite. If it weren't for Muir, it is doubtful that the valley thereof in particular would belong to us all as it does today. What a remarkable gift to future generations! When the recently issued commemorative coins from all 50 states were being rolled out, a lot of people were curious to see who and what California would honor, and to its credit and, yes, that of then Governor Ahhh-nold :) the quarter bears a tribute to the life and legacy of Muir. There is a lot of detail about his early life growing up in Wisconsin, and too little is said about his wonderful story of Stickeen, which was the most popular thing he ever wrote in his lifetime, but all in all I greatly enjoyed reading the life story of this great man.
September 11, 2014
I am not 100% this was the book I listened to. I have search to find the exact one and I think this is it.
John Muir's reverence for nature inspires me to not ignore the revitalizing spiritual link that nature can hold between me and God.
John Muir's reverence for nature inspires me to not ignore the revitalizing spiritual link that nature can hold between me and God.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews