There have been quite a number of very fine surveys of contemporary nature writers, and this is one of the best. James I. McClintock has chosen five individuals whose mystical encounters with the natural world have transformed them and their imaginative vision of life. Aldo Leopold, the first spokesperson for ecological conscience, found a kindred spirit in Joseph Wood Krutch, a nature writer who espoused a "joyous pantheism." Edward Abbey used his experIence of wilderness wonders as an antidote to the warps of modernity. Annie Dillard's spiritual pilgrimages through nature and Gary Snyder's poetics of place have made them two of the most respected voices for a sacred understanding of ecology.