[These are some comments from him that I received a while back that I doubt he'd mind being made public] Dear Mr. Proyect, Thanks for you message and generous words about my book. The book Cockburn apparently was citing is my *An Unsettled Country: Changing Landscapes of the American West*, published by the University of New Mexico Press in 1994. See especially the essay, "Other Nations, Other Lives." I have not written a critique of Bill Cronon's *Nature's Metroplis* and if I did, would have to say there is a lot in it that I admire and find useful. He does not strike me as dogmatic Marxist. If anything, I think his position is closer to the "green capitalist" position than Marx. He does present the sweep of capitalism as inexorable and permanent, and he does not suggest strongly enough (except in the Great Lakes forest chapter) the ecological problems that followed capitalistic agriculture. But he does criticize the capitalists for their dehumanizing or exploitative treatment of Chicago workers, etc. Well, I would be interested in hearing more of your critique of the book. Perhaps I have missed a few things. Don Worster ==== Well, now if you are talking about Cronon's controversial stance on wilderness, I have written something relevant--not very substantial but still relevant. See my essay "The Wilderness of History" in *Wild Earth*, vol. 7, no. 3, Fall 1997. Bill and I may disagree over whether "humanism" is an adequate moral basis for environmental ethics. We've not had that discussion, but I suspect it is a divergence. And it probably makes me divergent from the CNS group, Jim O'Connor included. But in a country where everything comes to a halt over whether one particular politician screwed a 21 year old woman, after repeated rubbings (a temptation most of the Senate would fail to resist), I don't suppose it matters a whole lot whether "humanism" or "ecocentrism" is where we aim in our relations with the earth. These days, so long as somebody is at least taking notice of the natural world and its condition, I am their ally and friend. Don Worster Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
