Publisher Description
An award-winning historian tells the story of hunting in America, showing how this sport has shaped our national identity.
From Daniel Boone to Teddy Roosevelt, hunting is one of America’s most sacred-but also most fraught-traditions. It was promoted in the 19th century as a way to reconnect “soft” urban Americans with nature and to the legacy of the country’s pathfinding heroes. Fair chase, a hunting code of ethics emphasizing fairness, rugged independence, and restraint towards wildlife, emerged as a worldview and gave birth to the conservation movement. But the sport’s popularity also caused class, ethnic, and racial divisions, and stirred debate about the treatment of Native Americans and the role of hunting in preparing young men for war.
This sweeping and balanced book offers a definitive account of hunting in America. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of our nation’s foundational myths.
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It is still a matter of debate as to how much hunting is in our DNA as individuals. As a nation, on the other hand, hunting is a basic building block, essential to our national story. Philip Dray traces the origins of our founding relationship with guns to today, when, while fewer people hunt, hunting and the politics it aligns with holds tremendous sway. Surveying huge tracts of history swiftly and concisely, Dray makes the largely overlooked point that for all the complicated emotions it incites, hunting may hold some answers to ways we might universally reconnect with a natural world that we are racing to destroy.
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Robert Sullivan, author of RatsÂ
