Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

Front Cover
Da Capo Press, 2007 - 352 pages
Joseph Knowles was a forty-five-year-old part-time painter, ex-Navy man, friend of the Sioux, and onetime hunting guide who stepped-nearly naked-into the woods to live off the land and his own devices. From 1913 to 1916, Knowles's dispatches to the world-alternating accounts of bear clubbing and quiet contemplation, written in charcoal on pieces of birch bark-set off major newspaper wars, exploiting readers' fears of modernization. Did Knowles really survive for months at a time in the untamed wilderness without any aid, and why is the answer still so vital to the American psyche? Part adventure story, part cultural investigation, Naked in the Woods reveals a whole new dimension of our natural history.

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Contents

The Makings of a Nature Man
25
The Toast of Boston
49
Faking It in the Fading Frontier
85
Copyright

5 other sections not shown

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About the author (2007)

Jim Motavalli is the editor of "E: The Environmental Magazine". He has written for the "New York Times", "Los Angeles Times", & many other publications. He teaches journalism at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

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