Includes bibliographical references (pages [199]-213) and index.

From John Muir to the Endangered Species Act, environmentalism in America has always had close to its core a preservationist ideal. Generations have been inspired by its ethos--to keep nature apart, to protect it. But we have to face the facts. Accelerating climate change, rapid urbanization, agricultural and industrial intensification, and other anthropogenic forces all attest to the same truth: the eart is now spinning through the age of humans. After Preservation takes stock of the ways we have tried to both preserve and exploit nature to ask a direct but profound question: what is the role of preservation in an era of seemingly unstoppable human development?--back cover.