Engineering Eden

“Weaves together a dramatic court case in Los Angeles, a grizzly-bear attack, and a surprisingly fascinating debate . . . a thrilling read.” —The Wall Street Journal

Winner of the California Book Award, Silver Medal for Nonfiction

Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing

One of Outside magazine’s 10 Outdoor Books that Shaped the Last Decade

In the summer of 1972, twenty-five-year-old Harry Eugene Walker hitchhiked away from his family’s northern Alabama dairy farm to see America. Nineteen days later, he was killed by an endangered grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park. The ensuing civil trial, brought against the US Department of the Interior for alleged mismanagement of the park’s grizzly population, emerged as a referendum on how America’s most beloved wild places should be conserved. Two of the twentieth century’s greatest wildlife biologists testified—on opposite sides.

Moving across decades and among Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, and Sequoia National Parks, former park ranger Jordan Fisher Smith has crafted an epic, emotionally wrenching account of America’s fraught, century-and-a-half-long attempt to remake Eden—in the name of saving it.

“This meticulously investigated history of Yellowstone and its wildlife management problems should appeal to fans of Jack Olsen’s classic Night of the Grizzlies.” —Library Journal

“A wonderful book . . . Smith uses [Walker’s death] as a narrative focal point to explore science, policy making, bureaucracy, ego, even the law, and when he explores something he goes deep.” —John M. Barry, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Great Influenza

“First-rate storytelling.” —Seattle Times