Product Description: The fascinating story of the century-long attempt to control nature in the American wilderness as told through the prism of a tragic death at Yellowstone.When 25-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone Park in 1972, the civil trial prompted by his death became a proxy for bigger questions about American wilderness management...read more

Product Description: The fascinating story of the century-long attempt to control nature in the American wilderness as told through the prism of a tragic death at YellowstoneWhen 25-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone Park in 1972, the civil trial prompted by his death became a proxy for bigger questions about American wilderness management that had been boiling for a century...read more

The fascinating story of the century-long attempt to control nature in the American wilderness as told through the prism of a tragic death at Yellowstone.When 25-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone Park in 1972, the civil trial prompted by his death became a proxy for bigger questions about American wilderness management. In this remarkable excavation of American environmental history, Engineering Eden by Jordan Fisher Smith, a nature writer and former park ranger, shows how efforts at wilderness management have always been undone by one fundamental problem-- that the idea of what is ''natural'' dissolves as soon as we begin to examine it, leaving us with little framework to say what wilderness should look like and which human interventions are acceptable in trying to preserve it.

A park ranger shares his experiences on the edge of civilization in the Sierras, including his confrontations with criminals and extreme sports enthusiasts, and his gruesome discovery of a female jogger who had been killed and partially consumed by a mountain lion.