Gavin Van Horn is the director of Cultures of Conservation for the Center for Humans and Nature, a nonprofit organization that focuses on and promotes conservation ethics. He is coeditor of City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness, also published by the University of Chicago Press. He lives in Evanston, IL. John Hausdoerffer is a fellow for the Center for Humans and Nature as well as the executive director of the Center for Environment & Sustainability at Western State Colorado University, where he is professor of environmental sustainability and philosophy and directs the Master in Environmental Management Program. He is the author of Catlin's Lament: Indians, Manifest Destiny, and the Ethics of Nature and editor of Aaron Abeyta's Letters from the Headwaters. He lives in Gunnison, CO.
An impressively thoughtful and artful collection. The pieces in Wildness are engaging and often lyrical, maintaining a kind of authorial intimacy throughout; collectively they work well to advance the book's timely theme of the wild as a human condition. Brimming with strong and original voices, this is a top-flight anthology that takes an old idea and makes it new, hip, and fresh. --Ben A. Minteer, Arizona State University, coeditor of After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans