Wildlife In America [Mass Market Paperback]

Peter Matthiessen, the author of the classic The Snow Leopard, here takes a long view of the troubled relationship between Americans and animals. Cataloging extinctions right and left, Matthiessen, who wrote this book in the late 1950s well before the rise of the present environmental movement, documents the decline of bear and wolf, caracara and crane, salamander and chub in the face of Manifest Destiny and economic progress. It's a sad tale, especially because what Matthiessen wrote of the last wild animals 40 years ago remains true today: "Such protection as is extended them too rarely includes the natural habitats they require, and their remnants skulk in a lean and shrinking wilderness." This is an essential book for environmentalists.

These dual Matthiessens, which launch the publisher's new "Nature Classics" line, profile the relationship between humans and nature in East Africa (The Tree, LJ 12/1/72) and in the United States (Wildlife, LJ 1/15/60). The latter volume has been expanded and updated for this edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This classic history of the rare, threatened, and extinct animals of North America is a dramatic chronicle of man's role in the disappearance of great and small species of our land. "Should be the number one source volume for everyone who embraces the philosophy of conservation."--Roger Tory Peterson. Illustrations throughout.