"In American Literary Environmentalism, Mazel shows that early writings constituted a form of cultural politics that began with the colonial confrontation with the wilderness and culminated in the creation of our first national park at Yosemite in 1864.

He examines a host of works such as John Underhill's Newes from America, Mary Rowlandson's Narrative of the Captivity, and Clarence King's Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada; he also offers a new reading of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and reviews different interpretations of Yosemite, from Lafayette Bunnell's Discovery of the Yosemite to National Park Service texts.".

"Through these literary studies, Maze demonstrates how broadly American culture is saturated with the wilderness mystique - and how the construction of the environment is an exercise of cultural power."--BOOK JACKET.