An academic profile of redwood conservation in the mid-20th century. The author traces the changes in scientific wisdom from 19th-century romanticism and teleological evolutionism to more current ecological dynamism - and the influence of those intellectual developments on political history.

Everyone knows Darwin's theory of natural selection, but what about his idea of artificial selection - how humans, not nature, rework natural organisms to meet our needs? This volume brings us to the threshold of the new field of evolutionary history - from the mobilization of war horses in the 19th century to today's engineered plants and animals.

From the ancient Appalachians to the high Sierra, mountains have always symbolized wilderness for Americans. Susan Schrepfer unfolds the history of our fascination with high peaks and rugged terrain to tell how mountains have played a dramatic role in shaping American ideas about wilderness and its regulation.

Delving into memoirs and histories, letters and diaries, early photos and old maps, Schrepfer especially compares male and female mountaineering narratives to show the ways in which gender affected what men and women found to value in rocky heights, and how their different...