But Solnit finds this trend ominous. Walking, she believes, is an irreplaceable way of engaging with the natural world, the human community, and our own mind. In Wanderlust , she explains why. In her opening chapter, Solnit argues that the human mind moves best at the speed of human feet. But that belief doesn't keep her book from ranging far and wide across a broad field of human knowledge and experiences, examining two-footed travel from a hundred different perspectives, drawing on an extensive range of sources to give us the history, the literature, the philosophy, the sexual politics, and the anthropology of walking.
Humanity is the only animal species that walks comfortably on two legs.
But anthropologists, Solnit explains, can't agree on why we became bipedal. But however we became upright, we've been walking ever since, with dramatic consequences. Walking changes the world, as Solnit explains. Wordsworth wanders around England, writing poetry that changes the way society views nature. John Muir strides across America and helps create the ecological mindset that gave rise to America's park system.