Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash - Book Report/Review Example

The United s is, and perhaps will remain, unique in terms of many civilizations and cultures that exist throughout the world. One of the main reasons for this has to do with the fact of the way in which the United States was originally colonized and expanded. As a very function of the frontier culture that existed within the early United States, it was oftentimes assumed that the resource of nature was something of an inexhaustible resource that can be taken for granted, used, abused, discarded, and tapped to something of a never-ending degree.

As a result of this particularly flawed level of thinking, nature has experienced a great assault over the past several centuries within the United States. As a means of understanding this cultural and historical reality, the author points to the fact that this particularly flawed level of thinking must be changed in order for the remaining natural resources and nature that is represented throughout the United States to be preserved. In order for this to take place, the author argues that a very clear level of management of these resources and indeed the resource of nature must take place.

Rather than this management being and ethereal concept, the author argues for the fact that preservation in and of itself is not enough. Due to the inherent nature of the way in which human beings seek to utilize resources and maximize their own selfish needs, nature is under a continual and current threat. Through such a level of understanding, the reader can come to the appreciation of the fact that in order for nature to be preserved, there must be adequate entities within society and governments that have the power and authority to place restrictions upon the manner and extent to which individuals within society can loot and/4 leverage the resources that nature provides.

A final salient issue that will be discussed, that was represented within the text, is with regards to the fact that nature inherently teaches a level of humility. For instance, within nature there are various strains of plants and various types of animals that can cause danger or even death to the human being. However, in our attempt to symbolize nature, many of these threats have all but been removed. For instance, the prevalence of the grizzly bear in the western portion of the United States has nearly entirely been restricted to nature preserves and other parks (Nash, 2001).

By much the same token, alligators within Florida are something of a novelty as compared to immediate and endemic part of the environment. In an attempt to create a safer world that is devoid of these levels of threat, human beings have fundamentally shifted and altered the way in which nature is represented. As such, the author argues for the fact that this impact the elation of nature is unnatural and causes the ecosystem a great level of harm. Whereas it is true that cities and towns throughout the United States might not consider themselves safe with roaming bands of wolves walking the street, or some other form of potentially dangerous wildlife, seeking to eliminate them entirely from regions in which humans occupied is also the epitome of folly.

ReferenceNash, R. (2001). Wilderness and the American mind. New Haven London: Yale University Press.