"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 ofOutsidemagazine'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 classicNight 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

Jordan Fisher Smith worked for 21 years as a park ranger in California, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska. The author of Nature Noir and narrator of the documentary Under Our Skin, he has written for The New Yorker, Men's Journal, and many other outlets.Jack E. Davis won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea.