Now in paperback! A dual biography of two of the most compelling
elements in the narrative of wild America, John Muir and Alaska. John
Muir was a fascinating man who was many things: inventor, scientist,
revolutionary, druid (a modern day Celtic priest), husband, son, father
and friend, and a shining son of the Scottish Enlightenment -- both in
temperament and intellect. Kim Heacox, author of The Only Kayak, bring
us a story that evolves as Muir's life did, from one of outdoor
adventure into one of ecological guardianship---Muir went from
impassioned author to leading activist. The book is not just an engaging
and dramatic profile of Muir, but an expose on glaciers, and their
importance in the world today. Muir shows us how one person changed
America, helped it embrace its wilderness, and in turn, gave us a better
world. December 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of Muir's death. Muir
died of a broken heart, some say, when Congress voted to approve the
building of Hetch Hetchy Dam in Yosemite National Park. Perhaps in the
greatest piece of environmental symbolism in the U.S. in a long time, on
the California ballot last November was a measure to dismantle the Hetch
Hetchy Dam. Muir's legacy is that he reordered our priorities and
contributed to a new scientific revolution that was picked up a
generation later by Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, and is championed
today by influential writers like E.O. Wilson and Jared Diamond. Heacox
takes us into how Muir changed our world, advanced the science of
glaciology and popularized geology. How he got people out there. How he
gave America a new vision of Alaska, and of itself.
