Frequently compared to Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, and Gary Snyder, John Hay is one of this country’s greatest nature writers. Originally published in 1969, In Defense of Nature is an eloquent and prescient plea on behalf of the natural world. Devoid of sentimentality yet lyrical and deeply moving in its portrayals of our despoliation of nature, Hay’s classic work is now available to a new generation of readers.

Wendell Berry has called John Hay a “carrier of light and wisdom.” In Defense of Nature reveals why this is true. In it Hay has written an extended meditation on the environment and our place in it. Its lessons never more important, In Defense of Nature eerily presages the tenuous state of our environment and our place in it. As our technical abilities have moved forward, our judgment has not kept pace. “What we call natural resources cannot be limited to gas, oil, pulpwood, or uranium,we are starving the natural resources in ourselves. The soul needs to stretch; being needs to exercise.”

John Hay is the author of more than sixteen books, including The Great Beach, which won the John Burroughs Medal in 1964. He is a former professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. A longtime resident of Cape Cod, he now lives in Bremen, Maine.