With this spectacularly illustrated gift edition, a new generation of readers can walk beside one of America's most respected naturalists as he conveys the beauty of a marsh before sunrise or the wealth of history to be found in an ancient oak.

Features the eight influential books in which John Muir reflects on the beauty of America's wilderness and fights for their protection.

"One hundred and seventy-five years ago, a Swiss immigrant took America by storm, launching American science as we know it. The irrepressible Louis Agassiz, legendary at a young age for his work on mountain glaciers, focused his prodigious energies on the fauna of the New World. Invited to deliver a series of lectures in Boston, he never left, becoming the most famous scientist of his time. A pioneer in field research and an obsessive collector, Agassiz...

"This book unabashedly declares that love for our biologically and culturally diverse world is a much-needed virtue, an essential need. Collectively, the twenty-three authors--ecologists, psychologists, and educators, poets and artists, the healers and the healed--explore the notion that practicing attentive natural history remains an essential pathway to sanity and health, for both individuals and societies. The book's fundamental premise is that...