Nash's study in this book[1] concerns the attitude of Americans' toward the idea of wilderness. He discusses the different attitudes that humans have toward nature. While wilderness – in a strictly physical sense – has provided for the mass of the American economy, wilderness as a philosophical concept has provided America something to rally for and against, to harness and to allow be "untrammeled". While wilderness has always had a love/hate relationship with civilization, Nash states that if wilderness is to survive, we must, ironically, manage wilderness – at the very least, our behavior towards the wilderness must be managed.