Cronon and Thoreau

In William Cronon's The Trouble with Wilderness, he states the difficulties that the modern idea of wilderness, nature, and the frontier clash with the goals of environmentalism and conservation. While giving a history of ideas and the evolution of man's relationship towards nature, Cronon explains the danger of seeing untamed lands as alien to humans, as though when people walk amongst the wilds we are a purer version of ourselves that has no effect on the landscape. Thoreau appears in the essay more than once, most notably as an example of a nineteenth century writer who views the wilderness with the same fear and awe of the ancients, seeing God's fearsome creation as the sublime on earth. The two writers seem to agree on several points, the most important in my mind is that Thoreau did not live in opposition or imagine it was indifferent to his presence, he lived in and tended the land he lived on while appreciating in his travels the sublime and untouched nature of wild landscapes. Thoreau's joining of acknowledging one's effect on nature while also being able to appreciate its "otherness" is exactly the change Cronon recommended for environmentalists to adopt. However, Thoreau's writings did encourage the natural tourism that fostered what he perceived as the way in which humans justified their destructive city lifestyle.