Considering the nature of wilderness - Reflections on Roderick Nash's Wilderness and the American Mind

Roderick Nash helped to define the field of environmental history with his 1967 book, Wilderness and the American Mind. Nash's work examines the trans ition of American attitudes toward wilderness from hostility to recognition of the need to create and protect wilderness as places where humans may go but should not stay. This piece considers both Nash's work and the continu ed relevance and impact of his ideas. The objective way Nash describes wild erness as a pristine place through much of his work has become increasingly problematic as scholars consider the ways in which humans construct and re construct different and often contradictory conceptualizations of nature. A lthough Nash's work does not definitively explore the idea of wilderness an d its modern significance, it does provide a foundational consideration of the way Americans have interacted with the concept of a reality not modifie d by human industry, culture, or technology.