Overview

* ""We see through this book the immense power of language...to change the minds of lawmakers and tourists alike."" --The New York Times Book Review * ""A poignant portrait of an era when mere words could change the world."" --San Francisco Chronicle * The dramatic and uplifting story of legendary outdoorsman and conservationist John Muir's journey to save Yosemite is ""a rich, enjoyable excursion into a seminal period in environmental history"" (The Wall Street Journal). In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir--iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher--meets face-to-face for the first time with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair, opposites in many ways, decide to venture to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site where twenty years earlier, Muir experienced a personal and spiritual awakening that would set the course of the rest of his life. Upon their arrival the men are confronted with a shocking vision, as predatory mining, tourism, and logging industries have plundered and defaced ""the grandest of all the special temples of Nature."" While Muir is devastated, Johnson, an arbiter of the era's pressing issues in the pages of the nation's most prestigious magazine, decides that he and Muir must fight back. The pact they form marks a watershed moment, leading to the creation of Yosemite National Park, and launching an environmental battle that captivates the nation and ushers in the beginning of the American environmental movement. ""Comprehensively researched and compellingly readable"" (Booklist, starred review), Guardians of the Valley is a moving story of friendship, the written word, and the transformative power of nature. It is also a timely and powerful ""origin story"" as the towering environmental challenges we face today become increasingly urgent.

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9781982144463

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Today, John Muir is considered by many to be the spiritual leader of the American environmental movement, the father of our national parks, and one of our most revered writers on behalf of wilderness. The story of how he earned those accolades began and ended in the very same place: the exquisite granite valley in northern California whose towering trees, pewter-colored cliffs, and ethereal waterfalls captivated Muir upon his arrival in the High Sierras in the summer of 1868, and whose treasures he was still battling to protect when he went to his grave almost a full half-century later. In the long arc of Muir's life, no place was more sacred to him than Yosemite--and in the fight to protect that space and its many wonders from the ravages of commercial loggers, rapacious tourism developers, and municipal water thieves, no alliance mattered more than his friendship with Robert Underwood Johnson, the gifted magazine editor who first helped Muir to find his voice, later goaded him to hone it to a keen edge, and eventually gave him the means to draw that sword and begin swinging it on behalf of nature. In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King has forged a flaming tribute to the perhaps greatest knight of American conservation, and to the extraordinary landscape that was his paramount source of inspiration. --Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile Flush with successful conquest, in the second half of the nineteenth century, growth-obsessed United States culture undertook the systematic pillage of the American West. Capitalists accrued gargantuan fortunes as forests fell before the industrial axe, hydraulic miners dissolved mountains, and dams stilled free-flowing rivers. In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King tells the rousing tale of how muscular outdoorsman John Muir and the bookish Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir's editor at The Century magazine, forged a friendship that marshaled the nascent forces of conservation, created the modern environmental movement, and, against all odds, saved Yosemite from the maw of industrialization and birthed the national parks--the best idea we've ever had. --Gregory Crouch, author of The Bonanza King

Today, John Muir is considered by many to be the spiritual leader of the American environmental movement, the father of our national parks, and one of our most revered writers on behalf of wilderness. The story of how he earned those accolades began and ended in the very same place: the exquisite granite valley in northern California whose towering trees, pewter-colored cliffs, and ethereal waterfalls captivated Muir upon his arrival in the High Sierras in the summer of 1868, and whose treasures he was still battling to protect when he went to his grave almost a full half-century later. In the long arc of Muir's life, no place was more sacred to him than Yosemite--and in the fight to protect that space and its many wonders from the ravages of commercial loggers, rapacious tourism developers, and municipal water thieves, no alliance mattered more than his friendship with Robert Underwood Johnson, the gifted magazine editor who first helped Muir to find his voice, later goaded him to hone it to a keen edge, and eventually gave him the means to draw that sword and begin swinging it on behalf of nature. In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King has forged a flaming tribute to the perhaps greatest knight of American conservation, and to the extraordinary landscape that was his paramount source of inspiration. --Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile Flush with successful conquest, in the second half of the nineteenth century, growth-obsessed United States culture undertook the systematic pillage of the American West. Capitalists accrued gargantuan fortunes as forests fell before the industrial axe, hydraulic miners dissolved mountains, and dams stilled free-flowing rivers. In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King tells the rousing tale of how muscular outdoorsman John Muir and the bookish Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir's editor at The Century magazine, forged a friendship that marshaled the nascent forces of conservation, created the modern environmental movement, and, against all odds, saved Yosemite from the maw of industrialization and birthed the national parks--the best idea we've ever had. --Gregory Crouch, author of The Bonanza King Guardians of the Valley propels Dean King to the first rank of writers on nature, letting us discover as if for the first time the beauty and majesty of Yosemite. And in his equally enthralling parallel story of John Muir's partnership with editor and power broker Robert Underwood Johnson, King demonstrates how passion and politics, in support of noble causes, can unite rather than divide a nation. In that sense, this extraordinary book is more than great history. It just might be a blueprint for our own times. --Charles Slack, author of Liberty's First Crisis

Guardians of the Valley is propulsive, revelatory, and immensely readable. Summoning new research and fresh insights into the extraordinary character of John Muir, Dean King has written an absorbing paean to a deep friendship that rescued one of the planet's most magical landscapes from the jaws of Mammon. --Hampton Sides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice This comprehensively researched and compellingly readable history offers an intimate yet sweeping portrait of an inspirational friendship that literally altered the American landscape and enshrined the modern-day conservation movement. --Booklist (starred review) [An] inspired account . . . sparkling history. . . . King vividly chronicles Muir's evolution from 'self-styled hobo' to forceful activist, goaded and nurtured by the 'urbane' Johnson, and weaves in intriguing vignettes . . . as well as rhapsodic descriptions of the Sierra Nevada landscape. --Publishers Weekly Just when I thought we had heard all we could read and hear about the miraculous John Muir, this wonderful book on Muir's lifelong battle to save wild lands came into my hands. Deeply thoughtful, precisely researched, it is testimony to our ongoing obligation to protect the natural world. Muir is our inspiration and our teacher. --Gretel Ehrlich, author of The Solace of Open Spaces A book for anyone in love with Yosemite, California history, and our natural world. --San Francisco Chronicle, Most Anticipated Books of 2023 In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King has forged a flaming tribute to the perhaps greatest knight of American conservation, and to the extraordinary landscape that was his paramount source of inspiration. --Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile King has written a stirring tribute to the power of an alliance that transformed environmentalism in the US, a psalm to the radiant beauty of Yosemite, and an homage to John Muir, whom, as King assiduously sands away the polish of legend, emerges as a visionary, a mystic, and a reluctant but surprisingly accomplished political brawler dedicated to preserving the 'temples of Nature' for all Americans to cherish. --James Campbell, author of The Final Frontiersman and Braving It

Guardians of the Valley is propulsive, revelatory, and immensely readable. Summoning new research and fresh insights into the extraordinary character of John Muir, Dean King has written an absorbing paean to a deep friendship that rescued one of the planet's most magical landscapes from the jaws of Mammon. --Hampton Sides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice [An] inspired account . . . sparkling history. . . . King vividly chronicles Muir's evolution from 'self-styled hobo' to forceful activist, goaded and nurtured by the 'urbane' Johnson, and weaves in intriguing vignettes . . . as well as rhapsodic descriptions of the Sierra Nevada landscape. --Publishers Weekly Just when I thought we had heard all we could read and hear about the miraculous John Muir, this wonderful book on Muir's lifelong battle to save wild lands came into my hands. Deeply thoughtful, precisely researched, it is testimony to our ongoing obligation to protect the natural world. Muir is our inspiration and our teacher. --Gretel Ehrlich, author of The Solace of Open Spaces A book for anyone in love with Yosemite, California history, and our natural world. --San Francisco Chronicle, Most Anticipated Books of 2023 In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King has forged a flaming tribute to the perhaps greatest knight of American conservation, and to the extraordinary landscape that was his paramount source of inspiration. --Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile King has written a stirring tribute to the power of an alliance that transformed environmentalism in the US, a psalm to the radiant beauty of Yosemite, and an homage to John Muir, whom, as King assiduously sands away the polish of legend, emerges as a visionary, a mystic, and a reluctant but surprisingly accomplished political brawler dedicated to preserving the 'temples of Nature' for all Americans to cherish. --James Campbell, author of The Final Frontiersman and Braving It

Today, John Muir is considered by many to be the spiritual leader of the American environmental movement, the father of our national parks, and one of our most revered writers on behalf of wilderness. The story of how he earned those accolades began and ended in the very same place: the exquisite granite valley in northern California whose towering trees, pewter-colored cliffs, and ethereal waterfalls captivated Muir upon his arrival in the High Sierras in the summer of 1868, and whose treasures he was still battling to protect when he went to his grave almost a full half-century later. In the long arc of Muir's life, no place was more sacred to him than Yosemite--and in the fight to protect that space and its many wonders from the ravages of commercial loggers, rapacious tourism developers, and municipal water thieves, no alliance mattered more than his friendship with Robert Underwood Johnson, the gifted magazine editor who first helped Muir to find his voice, later goaded him to hone it to a keen edge, and eventually gave him the means to draw that sword and begin swinging it on behalf of nature. In Guardians of the Valley, Dean King has forged a flaming tribute to the perhaps greatest knight of American conservation, and to the extraordinary landscape that was his paramount source of inspiration. --Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile

Author Information

Dean King is an award-winning author of ten nonfiction books. He crossed the Sahara on camels and in Land Rovers while researching Skeletons on the Zahara, trekked the Long March trail in the mountains of Western China for Unbound, and was shot at while researching The Feud in Appalachia. His writing has appeared in Granta, Garden & Gun, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, Travel & Leisure, New York magazine, and The New York Times. He is the chief storyteller in two History Channel documentaries and is a producer of its nonfiction series Hatfields & McCoys: White Lightning. An internationally known speaker, King has also appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation, ABC World News Tonight, PBS American Experience, BBC Radio, and TEDx. He is a partner of Gum Street Productions, which is currently developing a feature documentary for Netflix.

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