the john muir exhibit - press_releases - muir among the animals
edited by Lisa Mighetto
(
from the book's dust jacket
)
Muir Among the Animals
edited by Lisa Mighetto
1986
Sierra Club Books,
San Francisco
Few people are aware of how much of John Muir's
writing was devoted to the subject of animals. Although
the nineteenth-century naturalist is best known for his
celebrations of mountain scenery, for his role in the early
development of the national parks system, and for
founding the Sierra Club, his observations of wildlife still
make compelling reading, especially for the modern reader
concerned with animal rights and animal welfare.
Collected here for the first time are Muir's superb
essays about those creatures he referred to as his
"horizontal brothers." Written in lively and often
humorous prose, his writings reveal much about the
attitudes toward animals at the turn of the century and, at
times, Muir's prescience about future wildlife issues.
Always, the reader's sense of empathy and understanding
for the lives of animals are enriched by Muir's keen
observations.
The essays are drawn from a wide range of sources,
including such favorite works as
Stickeen
and
My First Summer in the Sierra
, as well as occasional pieces that
appeared in the magazines
Century
and
Overland Monthly
.
Several selections are previously unpublished anywhere,
including two essays on predators which reveal Muir's
possession of an intellectual view that was far ahead of
its time. In the essay "Anthropocentrism and Predation"
he debunks his contemporaries' conventional notions of
human superiority and argues that the "universe would be
incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete
without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that
dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge" -- a
surprisingly modern view embraced by today's "deep
ecologists."
Editor Lisa Mighetto's eloquent introduction places
Muir and his works into the context of the contemporary
debate on animal rights, and photographs of Muir in the
wilderness and among his beloved animals add poignance
to this remarkable collection. Characteristically incisive
and colorful, these essays together reaffirm a
fundamental environmental premise -- that maintaining
wildlife as well as wilderness assures healthy
ecosystems, and that animals have an intrinsic worth
apart from their usefulness to humans. Ultimately, they
help us see how "any glimpse into the life of an animal
quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and
better in every way."
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