Wilderness and the American Spirit

"""[McConnell] writes with captivating and accessible combination of geology, geography, history and liberatory storytelling that informs and inspires."" --Ms. Magazine ""A rich and nuanced telling of US ideas about land, the Frontier, identity, and so many of the individual and social experiences that have led us to the difficult moment we live within...we urgently need this kind of great storytelling."" --David Syring, Fellow - Institute on the Environment and author of With the Saraguros: The Blended Life in a Transnational World ""McConnell beautifully muses on the call of the wild, why Americans have answered it over and over again, and the dangers of the myth of wilderness"" --Tove Danovich, author of Under the Henfluence ""McConnell brings myth and legend together with brutal reality, and it works like a charm. Beautiful, rich work from one of America's bright new literary lights."" --Julia Park Tracey, author of The Bereaved ""Ruby McConnell sings a landscape from a place of stillness and reflection, improvising from talismans she finds along the Applegate Trail. Wilderness and the American Spirit is an engaging meditation about the need for a new consciousness between humans and the earth."" --Peter Stark, bestselling author of Gallop Toward the Sun, The Last Empty Places and Astoria ""The stories of how each of these flawed adventurers brushes up against landscape and culture and moments in time and form a narrative that tells the story of a nation."" --Wendy Willis, author of These are Strange Times My Dear: Field Notes from the Republic"