Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark
By Daniel Botkin
Two hundred years ago, Lewis and Clark embarked on the ultimate wilderness journey across the American West. The travelers' meticulous scientific journals, says botanist and naturalist Daniel Botkin, still have much to teach us—not just about our natural heritage but also about our present environment and how it should be managed. In Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark (Oxford University Press, $15.95), reissued with a new afterword by the author in celebration of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, Botkin uses the journals to depict vividly the West of Lewis and Clark's time, comparing it with his own journeys to these now greatly changed places. In the end, Botkin argues, we must "come to a new understanding of the texture and weave of nature and of our relationship with it."
— Evan Johnson
