Nash's study in this book<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3PJZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20oNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4335,743719&dq=roderick-nash+raft&hl=en|title=Parks Subject of New Special|date=March 7, 1981|work=[[Waycross Journal-Herald]]|page=P5|accessdate=14 August 2011}}</ref> concerns the attitude of Americans' toward the idea of wilderness. He discusses the different [[Attitude|attitudes]] that American's have had toward nature since [[colonization]] and the changing uses and definitions of 'wilderness' in that context. Specifically, Nash describes the evolution of American wilderness conception through Transcendentalism, Primitivism, Preservationism, to Conservationism.<ref name="Wilderness and the American Mind, Nash 1973">{{cite book| title=Wilderness and the American Mind| edition=2nd rev| date=1973| first1=Roderick Frazier| last1=Nash| publisher=Yale UP| isbn=978-0300016499}}</ref> Nash states that if wilderness is to survive, we must, [[paradoxically]], manage wilderness – at the very least, our behavior towards the wilderness must be managed.
== Personal Philosophy ==
Nash presents America's anthropocentric view as the main enemy to all wilderness [[preservation]]. He argues that an ecocentric view is ideal and may work in the long run, but perhaps the preservation of nature and wilderness for the sake of holding resources out for the preservation of our own species would be more salient. Yet, even this strategy is hard for people to grasp, because it requires us to reach outside the present and look to the future. Still, Nash suggests that maybe the simple preservation of the [[Natural environment|environment]] for the sake of our own generation's recreation and health (oxygen sinks, etc.) could provide the [[impetus]] to slow some [[Profiteering|profiteering.]]
Nash also talks of how wilderness teaches us the value of [[humility]]. The problem is that humanity does not want to be humbled. Humans are a proud species who will do anything to avoid being humbled. To this end, we have ripped the wildness from the wilderness and removed all that causes any threat to our existence.
Nash believes that humankind has two choices in the next 1,000 years. We can "trash the planet into a wasteland" or adopt a plan to distill the world's population in 500 "islands" while allowing wilderness to flourish around us.
