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Environment / History / American Studies / Philosophy

Thinking Like a Mountain
Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests
Susan L. Flader
With a new preface


"A definitive history of Leopold's work."
—American Forests

"Thinking Like a Mountain is the central account of the intellectual odyssey that brought Leopold from his youth as an enthusiastic exterminator of predators to his largely posthumous role as the foremost American exponent of the ecological view of things."Library Journal

When initially published more than twenty years ago, Thinking Like a Mountain was the first of a handful of efforts to capture the work and thought of America's most significant environmental thinker, Aldo Leopold. This new edition of Susan Flader's masterful account of Leopold's philosophical journey, including a new preface reviewing recent Leopold scholarship, makes this classic case study available again and brings much-deserved attention to the continuing influence and importance of Leopold today.

Thinking Like a Mountain unfolds with Flader's close analysis of Leopold's essay of the same title, which explores issues of predation by studying the interrelationships between deer, wolves, and forests. Flader shows how his approach to wildlife management and species preservation evolved from his experiences restoring the deer population in the Southwestern United States, his study of the German system of forest and wildlife management, and his efforts to combat the overpopulation of deer in Wisconsin. His own intellectual development parallels the formation of the conservation movement, reflecting his struggle to understand the relationship between the land and its human and animal inhabitants.

Drawing from the entire corpus of Leopold's works, including published and unpublished writing, correspondence, field notes, and journals, Flader places Leopold in his historical context. In addition, a biographical sketch draws on personal interviews with family, friends, and colleagues to illuminate his many roles as scientist, philosopher, citizen, policy maker, and teacher. Flader's insight and profound appreciation of the issues make Thinking Like a Mountain a standard source for readers interested in Leopold scholarship and the development of ecology and conservation in the twentieth century.

Susan L. Flader is professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia, where she teaches environmental history and policy and the history of the Western United States. She is the coeditor with Baird Callicott of The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, also published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@wwwtest.uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)

The University of Wisconsin Press publishes several books about Aldo Leopold and many related titles on environmental topics. Use our search feature to find other books of interest.

Here are some of the key titles:

The Essential Aldo Leopold
Quotations and Commentaries
Edited by Curt D. Meine and Richard L. Knight

The River of the Mother of God
And Other Essays by
Aldo Leopold
Edited by Susan Flader and J. Baird Callicott

Aldo Leopold

His Life and Work
Curt Meine

Game Management
Aldo Leopold
With a new Foreword by Laurence R. Jahn

Prairie Time
The Leopold Reserve Revisited
John Ross and Beth Ross

cover of Thinking Like a Mountain is a deep forest green. A drawing of a wolf standing over a deer is featured.

August 1994
320 pp
.   5 x 8 1/2
12 Illustrations, 2 Maps, 2 Graphs
   

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Paper $26.95 a
ISBN 978-0-299-14504-0
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The cloth edition of this title is out of print.



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