Young John Muir: An Environmental Biography

By Steven Pavlos Holmes

Book Overview

As a founder of the Sierra Club and promoter of the national parks, as a passionate nature writer and as a principal figure of the environmental movement, John Muir stands as a powerful symbol of connection with the natural world. But how did Muir's own relationship with nature begin? In this pioneering book, Steven J. Holmes offers a dramatically new interpretation of Muir's formative years, one that reveals the agony as well as the elation of his earliest experiences of nature.
From his childhood in Scotland and Wisconsin through his young adulthood in the Midwest and Canada, Muir struggled--often without success--to find a place for himself both in nature and in society. Far from granting comfort, the natural world confronted the young Muir with a full range of practical, emotional, and religious conflicts. Only with the help of his family, his religion, and the extraordinary power of nature itself could Muir in his late twenties find a welcoming vision of nature as home--a vision that would shape his lifelong environmental experience, most immediately in his transformative travels through the South and to the Yosemite Valley.
More than a biography, The Young John Muir is a remarkable exploration of the human relationship with wilderness. Accessible and engaging, the book will appeal to anyone interested in the individual struggle to come to terms with the power of nature.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0299161544
• ISBN13: 9780299161545
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Masterfully, Intricately-Done Biography

Environmental History is a growing and much-needed field of Academia. John Muir, a peaceful yet titanic figure in America's own enviromental movement, like Rachel Carson, like, in his own right-Teddy Roosevelt, is a Pioneer of this movement. Professor Steven J.Holmes. Lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University, has produced a deeply poignant book about this deeply thoughtful man, i.e. in Muir's "formative" years, wherein his Scottish roots clashed, then melded and germinated beautifully with the ever-more wild Wisconsin of Muir's American years. Yet this child of Dunbar, Scotland, was to, even at the "tadpole's age" of five, begin having transformative and even existential experiences, mostly derived from and spawned by the "Wilderness," by Nature, but too by Muir's love for his beloved mother. According to Holmes' carefully-documented and sourced biographical history of Muir, the young Lad had, even at a VERY young(before age 2)age, an UNCANNY ability to interact with, respond to, and above all, Deeply TRUST his Mother-especially, began when John Muir was just two months of age. Yet to me, with Mother Earth being THE all-powerful and nurturing, kindly force that this species MUST needs be recognize(i.e., Patriarchal societies are NOW too destructive, for Mother Earth to sustain, much longer), these Youthful, formative instinctive developments on Muir's part would become incredibly important in and to that "ecocentric perspective,"(182) as Holmes terms it, that would dominate this quixotically wild but peace-loving man's entire Life's viewpoint, all to the LONG-TERM betterment(IF we can only LISTEN-NOW, if not SOONER) of this Nation-State, and this species.

An Excellent Biography!

I have been an admirer of John Muir since I was a young child. This book is excellent in the way in which Steven J. Holmes captures the essence of a man who continues to inspire persons of all ages and backgrounds with his life. It offers intimate glimpses into Muir's experiences as well as a new perspective into understanding Muir as a universalist humanitarian and hero.