The Natural West
By Dan Flores
2001
First Published
4.02
Average Rating
304
Number of Pages
The Natural West offers essays reflecting the natural history of the American West as written by one of its most respected environmental historians. Developing a provocative theme, Dan Flores asserts that Western environmental history cannot be explained by examining place, culture, or policy alone, but should be understood within the context of a universal human nature. The Natural West entertains the notion that we all have a biological nature that helps explain some of our attitudes towards the environment. FLores also explains the ways in which various cultures-including the Comanches, New Mexico Hispanos, Mormons, Texans, and Montanans-interact with the environment of the West. Gracefully moving between the personal and the objective, Flores intersperses his writings with literature, scientific theory, and personal reflection. The topics cover a wide range-from historical human nature regarding animals and exploration, to the environmental histories of particular Western bioregions, and finally, to Western restoration as the great environmental theme of the twenty-first century.
Avg Rating
4.02
Number of Ratings
42
5 STARS
36%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
26%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Dan Flores
Author · 8 books
Dan Flores is an environmental writer who from 1992 to 2014 held the A. B. Hammond Chair in the History of the American West at the University of Montana. A native of Louisiana and currently a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, he has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Time Magazine. Along with appearances on Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown on CNN and on Joe Rogan's podcasts, he was a consultant for and is featured in Ken Burns' 2023 documentary on the story of the American buffalo. Flores' eleven books and numerous essays have won nearly three-dozen literary prizes. His most recent works are American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains, winner of the Stubbendieck Distinguished Book Prize in 2017; Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, a 2017 New York Times Bestseller that won the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and was a Finalist for PEN America’s E. O. Wilson Prize in Literary Science Writing; and Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America, a Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2022.
