Think Like a Mountain

In 20 short books, Penguin Classics brings you the new canon of great environmental works

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As humans have driven the living planet to the brink of collapse, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend it. Their words have endured, becoming the classics that define the environmental movement today.

In this lyrical meditation on the American wild lands, Leopold considers the different ways humans shape the natural landscape, and describes for the first time the far-reaching phenomenon now known as 'trophic cascades'.

About the Author

Considered by many to be the father of wildlife ecology, Aldo Leopold (1887 - 1948) was a conservationist, forester, philosopher, educator, writer, and outdoor enthusiast.

Among his best-known ideas is the "land ethic," set out in A Sand County Almanac (1949), which calls for humankind's 'ethical community' to expand and include 'soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land,' and 'changes the role of Homo sapiens from conquerer of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it'.