THE WILD BUNCH

Ansel Adams, David Brower, Wallace Stegner, Nancy Newhall, Edward Abbey, and the Fight for Wilderness in the American West

*Ansel Adams, “Pinchot Pass, Mt. Wynne, Kings River Canyon (Proposed as a national park),” California, 1936. Department of Interior, National Park Service/National Archives.*

The Wild Bunch is about how a small but vital group of artists, writers, and activists working in the American West shaped the image and ethic of nature preservation in the middle decades of the 20th century. Specifically, it is the story of how these individuals mobilized the defense of natural beauty and the psychological and cultural power of the wilderness in response to the rapid industrialization and commercialization of the West, largely in the 1950s and 1960s. From Ansel Adams and David Brower to Edward Abbey, the preservationists came to view untarnished nature, and especially wild country, as the bulwark against the environmental assaults of large-scale energy development (esp. hydropower), postwar consumerism, and mass tourism.

The book (in progress; under contract with Yale University Press) is driven by a mix of compelling biographical details, profiles of unforgettable places, and a succession of dramatic environmental “set pieces” in the struggle for nature and wilderness preservation in the American West in the mid-20th century.