Cronon overturned a lot of apple carts with this article, even if the idea wasn't wholly new. In fact, even though it wasn't wholly new, you can tell the influence of the article by the fact that virtually no serious environmental historian today would quibble with at least one component of the article:
Wilderness is "quite profoundly a human creation -- indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures" (7). Rather than a "pristine sanctuary," then, wilderness is in fact a "product of... civilization." The argument is at least in part a valid and important one, albeit unsettling to many readers.
One can approach this challenge to the wilderness ideal -- examining the concrete ways in which humans have managed and altered seemingly "untouched" wilderness areas, especially in our national parks; or, alternatively, examining the ways in which the idea of wilderness has developed and changed over time. In this groundbreaking article, Cronon attempts to do both, but is clearly interested more in the second.
Read the rest of this review on Bukisa.
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