A lifelong mountaineer, a poet, a descendant of naturalist William Bartram, and a gay ex-Baptist who took to the mountains to test his masculinity, David Oates has thought deeply about how nature and culture interact in our lives. His book "Paradise Wild" will move and provoke readers, while contributing to the ongoing debate over the meanings of "nature" and "wilderness."
An engaging mix of scholarship and personal reflection, "Paradise Wild" explores a range of topics, including the mountaineering adventures of John Muir, the debates over ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest, the nature writing of Terry Tempest Williams, and the environmental philosophies of Henry Thoreau and Edward Abbey. Above all, the book offers a passionate look at "wildness"-what Oates calls "the Eden in each moment and in each cell, that cannot be lost."
Readers interested in how we think about nature-in ecological politics, environmental literature and philosophy, nature writing, cultural studies, and queer studies-will welcome this bold and original new work.
