An uplifting but realistic response to the Anthropocene debate that has shaken the conservation community, offering a new definition and exploration of 'wildness' for the twenty-first century. Jason Mark is a prolific freelance writer and respected speaker who is well-connected within the conservation community. Mark's writing is poetic, insightful, and a pleasure to read; he has the all-too-rare ability to take a careful and thorough look at his subject without taking himself too seriously.
Jason Mark's writings on the environment have appeared in The New York Times, Atlantic.com, The Nation, and Salon.com, among many other publications. He is the long-time editor of Earth Island Journal, a quarterly magazine, and a co-founder of San Francisco's largest urban farm. A long time ago, Time magazine called him "a rebel with a cause."
"Satellites in the High Country is a brave and vigorous exploration
of wilderness--its meaning, its necessity, its thunderous,
rock-strewn reality. Jason Mark guides the reader across mountain
passes and Arctic tussocks on a journey that is at once physical,
philosophical, and political. His feet may be bruised, but his
voice is strong, honest, and compelling. Read this book for an
insightful and much-needed update on the centrality of wilderness
in the contemporary American mind."--Kathleen Dean Moore, author of
"Great Tide Rising"
"Satellites in the High Country is an act of ground truthing on the
nature of wildness at this moment in time. Author Jason Mark
circumnavigates the American West with the eyes of an open-hearted
sleuth, looking for what wild remains. Wildness, he discovers, is
not only all around us, but inside us as well, having little to do
with what is pristine or untouched and everything to do with
nature's intricate system of adaptation and response, function and
beauty, and our innate capacity for awe. This book is a
conversation with sanity."--Terry Tempest Williams, author of "When
Women Were Birds"
"In Satellites in the High Country, gripping accounts of outdoor
journeys are linked with provocative thinking about the meaning of
wildness in an increasingly human-controlled world. Jason Mark ably
continues the writing style and themes of legends such as John Muir
and Edward Abbey."--Roderick Frazier Nash, author of "Wilderness
and the American Mind"
"Through it all, [Mark] does a nice job of balancing historical
fact and sociopolitical commentary with poetic passages that
celebrate the breathtaking beauty of the natural world."
-- "KQED Arts "The Spine""
"In Satellites in the High Country, Mark narrates his adventures in
America's wilderness with stunning detail. The dilemma of whether
to leave nature to its own devices or tend it in order to preserve
its ecological integrity is sensitively portrayed. Now more than
ever, we need voices like Mark's to illustrate this ever-complex
relationship between mankind and nature, and to inspire us to care
for our wild places."--Jamie Williams, President of The Wilderness
Society
"Jason Mark is a great person to share an adventure with, whether
out on the Arctic tundra or on the page. Satellites in the High
Country is an engrossing exploration of the ever-evolving
definition of what is 'wild' in America--which often reveals as
much about us as it does about wilderness in the twenty-first
century."--Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club
"In his new book, Satellites In The High Country: Searching For The
Wild In The Age Of Man, Mark takes us on a journey across America
in search of wilderness, from a reservation in South Dakota where
the reintroduction of bison has divided the community to a cave in
Washington state where a British cavewoman is replicating life in
the Paleolithic more than two million years ago. Along the way, he
explores the meaning of wilderness and the urgent need to conserve
what remains of it."-- "National Geographic"
"In this compellingly readable account of his quest to explore some
of the planet's last remaining stretches of authentic wilderness,
environmental writer Mark argues that safeguarding a powerful sense
of 'the Wild' as separate from civilization is more critical than
ever....Mark presents a fresh, first-rate piece of nature writing
and a stirring manifesto calling for the protection and celebration
of the true spirit of wild places."
-- "Booklist"
"Mark carves out a fine distinction between inadvertent influence
caused by factors like climate change and intentional control. He
offers a heartfelt ode to the continued importance of
nonintervention in wilderness areas, even if doing so leads to
unrecognizably changed landscapes."
-- "High Country News"
"Mark journeys through wilderness that most of his readers will
never see, and in doing so demonstrates why in just knowing there
is wild, somewhere, we can remain grounded in our existence on the
planet....If Mark romanticizes the refuge found in the wild, he
makes no apologies for it. Satellites in the High Country is an
evocative meditation on reconnecting our bond to the natural world,
and why it is so important. But Mark's is more than a romantic
vision. It is also a pragmatic understanding that, to save
ourselves, we'll need to reconcile our fractured relationship to
the wild in the Age of Man."-- "Triple Pundit"
"One of the pleasures of Satellites in the High Country is that Mr.
Mark does not follow the usual nature writer's path and just throw
the word "wild" out there, waving it like a flag, before carrying
on with his own happy tramps into the wilderness. His approach to
decoding the word is comprehensive, ...The ideas are the best
part...trips are well-described and linked clearly to the book's
intellectual lessons."-- "Wall Street Journal"
"Throughout, Mark neatly blends the particular place details with
broad maxims of wilderness philosophy, slanted toward the needs of
earth's future, and expressed with an eloquent originality. What's
more he does it with some charming descriptive passages."
-- "Sierra Club's Words of the Wild"
Ask a Question About this Product More... |