The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year So Far

A lyrical exploration of the world’s wildest, most forbiddingly remote places—and the humans who have always been there, by “the best non-fiction writer of her generation,” according to The Times

From the blacksand beaches of Iceland, to river crossings deep in the Amazon jungle, to the barren beauty of Antarctica, wildernesses make up some of the world's more alluring natural landscapes. But what is a wilderness, really? It is a powerful, ancient concept, lying at the intersection of landscape, philosophy, and ecology. And for thousands of years, people have sought out uncontrolled, unknown, or uncharted nature in search of religious epiphany, self-actualization, and an escape from modern life. More recently these “pristine” places have been seen as the subject of a last effort to repair a planet imperiled by humans.

But as award-winning writer Cal Flyn traverses the most forbidding, untamed and inhospitable wild lands—the supposedly uninhabited wilds of the world—she finds that such truly untouched lands don't exist: Nearly every wilderness has been or is actively inhabited by humans. Here we meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds running off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks.

The Savage Landscape takes us into these breathtaking wilds—deep into dark forests, to the tops of mountains, and into the hearts of deserts—asking provocative questions about the nature of wilderness, its preservation, and its meaning.