HSL Annual Meeting with Author Phil Terrie

About

HSL members and the community are invited to join us for the 2025 Annual Meeting. The meeting will feature a special presentation from author and historian

Phil Terrie

presenting about his new book, Wild Forest Lands: Finding History and Meaning in the Adirondacks.

Book Description:

The Adirondack Park stands alone as one of the largest publicly protected areas in the United States, a constitutionally protected forest preserve with a provision guaranteeing that it must be “forever kept as wild forest lands.” But, just what does “wilderness” mean today and how can the concept be untangled from the colonial implications of the term as it first applied to the Adirondacks? 

Part memoir, part New York history, and part meditation, Wild Forest Lands ponders on the rhetorical and spiritual meaning of the Adirondack “wilderness.” Terrie revisits the literature and history of the region, reckoning with how his views on the places he has defended have evolved over time. Rich with detail, Wild Forest Lands grapples with the enduring power ofthe Adirondacks and what it truly means to preserve something that is, by nature, wild. 

About the Author:

Philip G. Terrie is professor emeritus in American culture and environmental studies at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Forever Wild: A Cultural History of Wilderness in the Adirondacks and Contested Terrain: A new History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks, Second Edition. 

Book cover for "Wild Forest Lands: Finding History and Meaning in the Adirondacks" by Philip G. Terrie, showing a misty sunrise over a lake.

Date / Time