This book introduces the origin, development and current state of American nature writing. It organizes many representative authors and works of American nature writing into such categories as the influence of transcendentalism, the wilderness complex, the English cultural heritage, female writers, land ethics, and refuge of the heart.

As a multi-disciplinary field combining language, literature, philosophy, ecology, botany, and ethics, American nature writing seeks to tell intimate personal experiences of places and explore the connection between human spirituality and nature in a particular place, blending natural history with the history of human development. These are the focus of this book. It analyzes key representative writers of American nature writing such as Thoreau, Emerson, Burroughs, Muir, Abbey, Leopold and Williams, and their works and respective personal relationships with nature, offering the reader a fascinating insight into American nature writing.