Natural Rivals

John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of America’s Public Lands

By: John Clayton

Narrated by: Richard Powers

Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

This dynamic examination traces the lives of two of the most influential figures - and their dueling approaches - on America’s natural landscape.

John Muir, the most famous naturalist in American history, protected Yosemite, cofounded the Sierra Club, and is sometimes called the Father of the National Parks. A poor immigrant, self-taught, individualistic, and skeptical of institutions, he had an idealistic belief in the spiritual benefits of holistic natural systems that led him to a philosophy of preserving wilderness unimpaired.

Gifford Pinchot founded the US Forest Service and advised his friend Theodore Roosevelt on environmental policy. Raised in wealth, educated in privilege, and interested in how institutions and community can overcome failures in individual virtue, Pinchot’s pragmatic belief in professional management led him to a philosophy of sustainably conserving natural resources.

When these rivaling perspectives meet, what happens? For decades, the story of their relationship has been told as a split between the conservation and preservation philosophies, sparked by a proposal to dam a remote Yosemite valley called Hetch Hetchy. But a decade before that argument, Muir and Pinchot camped together alongside Montana’s jewel-like Lake McDonald in what was at the heart of a region not yet consecrated as Glacier National Park.

At stake in 1896 was the new idea that some landscapes should be collectively, permanently owned by a democratic government. Although many people today think of public lands as an American birthright, their very existence was then in doubt and dependent on a merger of the talents of these two men. Natural Rivals examines a time of environmental threat and political dysfunction not unlike our own and reveals the complex dynamic that gave birth to America’s rich public lands legacy.

©2019 John Clayton (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing

history text book with extra visuals

The nature reserves and the invention of public land are laid out with great information, but proceeds to be dry with detailed description. The book reinvigorates love for nature.

good but not great

if the goal of the book is to compare two men who were leaders in preserving natural resources and show that their different methods were not so opposite then this book falls a bit short. However, the author does well presenting both men, their contributions and the general history of the struggle of how to both use and preserve natural resources.

entertaining story of a great rivalry

author tells an interesting story about the relationship of these two great men showing their rivalry actually was overblown and their goals of saving our natural wonders from destruction were closer than each was willing to admit. We need champions of nature like these two giants now more than ever.

Great performance, somewhat choppy story

The performance/narration of this book was the best I’ve heard yet.
I saw this book available free for members, and it sounded interesting. Overall, I definitely learned about the two men and public lands another came to be. I did feel as though the timeline was a little odd, and especially confusing for an audiobook.
I was glad that the author let his personal political views bleeds through and only the prologue in the epilogue… Not in the body of the actual book.
Overall, I learned some interesting tidbits, and was made even more excited about our public lands as American citizens.

Informative and inspiring

I highly recommend Clayton's book for any reader who wants to better understand how these heroic figures-- Pinchot and Muir--orchestrated the preservation/ conservation of precious public lands.

Review by a Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot was my great grandfather’s brother and I appreciated this book! Gifford has been undervalued by historians a long time. Bravo!!

Really enjoyed this book

I’d have given 5 stars for the story if the last chapter was just deleted.

absolutely worth a listen

a great book for the long commuter, wonderful for someone interested in history, adventure, and nature

Best Audiobook about John Muir or Gifford Pinchot

This is a great follow-up if you want more background after reading Timothy Egan's The Big Burn. I found it better than the biography of Muir, and it is the only Audiobook I could find about Pinchot.

Great for all who love nature!

I had this in my library for a while and it kept falling low on my list. I’m so happy to have listened to it. The story is engaging and very relatable to our climate concerns today. Excellent narration too!