Western Nature Essay

Texas Christian University Press' Literary History of the American West has wonderful 10 pages on "The Western Nature Essay since 1970."  It begins "1970, the year of the first Earth Day and of several important pieces of environmental legislation, makes a logical starting date for a summary of recent trends in the western nature essay. In truth, though, the "Environmental Decade" saw no startlingly new developments in western nature writing; what happened was that the theme and concerns of the genre, as they had evolved for almost a century, now became public themes and national concerns. Indeed, as Paul Brooks has argued in Speaking for Nature (1980), the work of such writers as John Muir, Mary Austin, Enos Mills, and Joseph Wood Krutch may have been a major impetus to the environmental awakening."  Read more (the whole book's online) at http://www2.tcu.edu/depts/prs/amwest/pdf/wl1246.pdf