Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire

American Forests, Autumn, 1997 by Carl Reidel

In response, Leopold wrote his most famous essay, "Thinking Like a Mountain," about his experience with the dying wolf he had shot and of the "fierce green fire" he had seen in her eyes - the source of this book's title. Lorbiecki's inclusion of 94 photographs of the Leopold family and homes make this biography an especially personal story.

For those of us who treasure Aldo Leopold's writings - some of which appeared in this magazine - this biography will deepen our understanding of love of his timeless words. His field-based, interdisciplinary approach to research and teaching remains the standard for sound ecological scholarship, warning us of the dangers of a narrow disciplinary education: "Education, I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another." For those yet to discover Aldo Leopold, this biography is a wonderful way to begin a special journey, to be followed by Leopold's A Sand County Almanac and Susan Flader's Thinking Like a Mountain.