Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement

"In Driven Wild, Paul Sutter traces the intellectual and cultural roots of the modern wilderness movement from about 1910 through the 1930s, with tightly drawn portraits of four Wilderness Society founders - Aldo Leopold, Robert Sterling Yard, Benton MacKaye, and Bob Marshall. Each man brought a different background and perspective to the advocacy for wilderness preservation, yet each was spurred by a fear of what growing numbers of automobiles, aggressive road building, and the meteoric increase in Americans turning to nature for their leisure would do to the country's wild places. As Sutter discovered, the founders of the Wilderness Society were "driven wild" - pushed by a rapidly changing country to construct a new preservationist ideal."--BOOK JACKET.