Nathaniel Van Yperen offers us a beautifully conceived and eloquently written account of the spiritual importance of wilderness—its propensity to teach us about the nature of things; its potential to realign our most important loyalties and loves; and its overwhelming power to place us in proximity to the very mystery of our being. Van Yperen moves nimbly within the classical canon of environmental and wilderness ethics (e.g. Thoreau, Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, etc.) providing the reader a matchless introduction to a topic of vital importance to our common future. This is a work of great depth and maturity. It deserves a wide audience.

William Stacy Johnson, Arthur M. Adams Professor of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary

Written from a widely-read heart, this elegant book integrates Christian tradition (and its critics) with the wilderness tradition (and its critics) to make a generous, self-aware moral argument for wilderness.

Willis Jenkins, University of Virginia