John Muir

The Scottish-born naturalist’s early years in the United States.

Kim Stanley Robinson on how the High Sierra has influenced his science fiction.

Muir's romantic vision obscured Indigenous ownership of the land—but a new generation is pulling away the veil.

Environmental historian Donald E. Worster pushes back against recent characterizations of Muir as a racist.

The writings of the Scottish-born American naturalist John Muir are known for their scientific acumen as well as for their rhapsodic flights.

One man's role in shaping the nation's best-loved long-distance footpath reminds us of the close bonds that Jews have formed with the North American landscape.

A new book explores the final days of Ralph Waldo Emerson - traveling from Concord to California, and beyond.

The founding father of American birding soared on the wings of white privilege. How should the birding community grapple with this racist legacy?

The Sierra Club's executive director takes a hard look at the white supremacy baked into the organization's formative years.

Du Bois's ideas about the environment — and how Jim Crow shaped them — have gone relatively unnoticed by environmental historians.

A brief history of camping.

Reflections on the ahistorical, aristocratic, and romanticist approach to "nature" elevated by John Muir, and by his admirer, Ken Burns.

Today’s contentious immigration debate is the construct of one man’s effort to halt overpopulation.

Fire is a planetary feature, not a biotic bug. What can we learn from Yosemite’s experiment to restore natural fire?

Traditional environmentalism has lacked a meaningful, practical democratic vision, rendering it largely marginal to the day-to-day lives of most Americans.

The national parks are the closest thing America has to sacred lands, and like the frontier of old, they can help forge our democracy anew.

Water—who owns it, who uses it—has shaped this landscape from the Paiutes’ irrigation canals to the Los Angeles aqueduct.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, talk about “the environment” had little of its later coherence or political meaning.

150 years after Yosemite opened to the public, the park's indigenous inhabitants are still struggling for recognition.

Why do people hike?