Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement
"Sutter ably demonstrates that all four founders of the Wilderness Society feared that roads and cars were destroying the last remnants of American wilderness, abetted by government's willingness to encourage modernization and tourism. Nicely written; extensively referenced."--Choice "Driven Wild is a fresh look at the origins of the wilderness movement that deserves a place on the shelf of both geographers and historians...An excellent addition to conservation literature." --Historical Geography "Driven Wild is an outstanding scholarly achievement and is one of the best books ever written about environmental politics...[It] deserves to be read by a wide audience; there is no doubt that its conclusions are important and will frame further discussions about this aspect of American environmental history and policy." --Electronic Green Journal "Sutter's most striking contribution in this book is to argue that the movement to protect wilderness had less to do with staving off threats posed by the rapacious activities of an industrial economy than with resisting the onslaught of automobile-owning consumers seeking recreational opportunities in rural and wild places."--from the Introduction by William Cronon "One must be impressed by the depth of historical research Sutter does to document the intellectual and philosophical roots of the wilderness movement. Interestingly, the issues he details continue to be the defining issues for the wilderness movement in the twenty-first century."--William H. Meadows, president, The Wilderness Society "Napoleon famously said that an army travels on its stomach. The destruction of wilderness, however, travels by road. The pioneers of wilderness area protection know this well, as Paul Sutter clearly shows in Driven Wild. All thinking conservationists must read this powerful new exploration of early environmentalism in America."--Dave Foreman, chairman, The Wildlands Project "The preservation of wilderness is one of America's greatest cultural achievements, and it is worth remembering how much complex thought has gone into making it happen. Paul Sutter restores to us a generation of activists who demand our respectful attention. They were subtle in their thinking, compassionate in their social sympathies, and critical in their response to consumer society. Well researched and skilfully written, this book will do much to elevate the contemporary debate over wilderness to higher ground."--Donald Worster, University of Kansas "Driven Wild is an important and long-needed book capturing the social, cultural, and intellectual milieu at the dawn of the organized wilderness movement in the United States."--Mark Harvey, author of A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement