A Garden of Bristlecones: Tales of Change in the Great Basin

Author Biography

Michael P. Cohen grew up in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley, was educated at UCLA, U.C. Riverside, and U.C. Irvine. Between 2000 and 2005 he was Visiting Professor in Literature and Environment at the University of Nevada, Reno.His first book, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness, won the Mark H. Ingraham Prize, University of Wisconsin Press, among other awards. He has been a Research Fellow of the National Endowment of Humanities, a Danforth Fellow, and was awarded a Distinguished Teaching Award by the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. His The History of the Sierra Club 1892-1970 has been called “a rare book: an institutional history that is nonetheless balanced, impartial, and unsparingly honest.” His most recent book, A Garden of Bristlecone Pines: Tales of Change in the Great Basin, was published by the University of Nevada Press and was a Finalist for Western States Book Award (WESTAF) in nonfiction.He has been working on a cultural and environmental narrative sited in Southern Utah--where he taught for 27 years at Southern Utah University--occasioned by the political conflicts, and the planning for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the first national monument to be administered by the Bureau of Land Management. He has also embarked on a study of the groundings of Ecocriticism, in the historically changing ideas of ecology, evolutionary theory, and literary theory, in the context of the environmental politics of the late twentieth century. He is known in the academic world as a pioneer in the realms of environmental history and “ecocriticism.” His writing is directed not only toward academic audiences. His western history has the literary qualities of fiction, his writings on trees are accessible histories of science. His work radiates a passion for the western landscapes.Cohen also has a distinguished record as a rock climber and mountaineer. He is a pioneer of first ascents in the Sierra Nevada, is an avid skier, fly-fisherman, kayaker, and has been a professional mountain guide. His work is marked by familiarity with the wild rivers and mountains of the west, and informed by varied and multidisciplinary scholarly interests.