For nearly twenty years, alone and unarmed, author Doug Peacock traversed the rugged mountains of Montana and Wyoming tracking the magnificent grizzly. His thrilling narrative takes us into the bear's habitat, where we observe directly this majestic animal's behavior, from hunting strategies, mating patterns, and denning habits to social hierarchy and methods of communication. As Peacock tracks the bears, his story turns into a thrilling narrative about the breaking down of suspicion between man and beast in the wild.

If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness. Edward Abbey

In a collection of gripping stories of adventure, Doug Peacock, loner, iconoclast, environmentalist, and contemporary of Edward Abbey, reflects on a life lived in the wild, asking the question many ask in their twilight years: Was It Worth It?

Recounting sojourns with Abbey, but also Peter Matthiessen, Doug Tompkins, Jim Harrison, Yvon Chouinard and others, Peacock observes that what he calls solitary walks were the greatest currency he and his buddies ever shared. He asserts that solitude is the deepest well I have encountered in this life, and the introspection it affords has made him who he is: a lifelong protector of the wilderness and its many awe-inspiring inhabitants.

With adventures both close to home (grizzlies in Yellowstone and jaguars in the high Sonoran Desert) and farther afield (tigers in Siberia, jaguars again in Belize, spirit bears in the wilds of British Columbia, all the amazing birds of the Galapagos), Peacock acknowledges that Covid 19 has put everyone's mortality in the lens now and it's not necessarily a telephoto shot. Peacock recounts these adventures to try to understand and explain his perspective on Nature: That wilderness is the only thing left worth saving.

In the tradition of Peacock's many best-selling books, Was It Worth It? is both entertaining and thought provoking. It challenges any reader to make certain that the answer to the question for their own life is Yes!

Doug Peacock, as ever, walks point for all of us. Not since Bill McKibben's The End of Nature has a book of such import been presented to readers. Peacock's intelligence defies measure. His is a beautiful, feral heart, always robust, relentless with its love and desire for the human race to survive, and be sculpted by the coming hard times: to learn a magnificent humility, even so late in the game. Doug Peacock's mind is a marvel--there could be no more generous act than the writing of this book. It is a crowning achievement in a long career sent in service of beauty and the dignity of life.--Rick Bass, author of Why I Came West and The Lives of Rocks

Our climate is changing fast. The future is uncertain, probably fiery, and likely terrifying. Yet shifting weather patterns have threatened humans before, right here in North America, when people first colonized this continent. About 15,000 years ago, the weather began to warm, melting the huge glaciers of the Late Pleistocene. In this brand new landscape, humans managed to adapt to unfamiliar habitats and dangerous creatures in the midst of a wildly fluctuating climate. What was it like to live with huge pack-hunting lions, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and gigantic short-faced bears, to hunt now extinct horses, camels, and mammoth? Are there lessons for modern people lingering along this ancient trail?

The shifting weather patterns of today--what we call global warming--will far exceed anything our ancestors previously faced. Doug Peacock's latest narrative explores the full circle of climate change, from the death of the megafauna to the depletion of the ozone, in a deeply personal story that takes readers from Peacock's participation in an archeological dig for early Clovis remains in Livingston, MT, near his home, to the death of the local whitebark pine trees in the same region, as a result of changes in the migration pattern of pine beetles with the warming seasons.

Writer and adventurer Doug Peacock has spent the past fifty years wandering the earth's wildest places, studying grizzly bears and advocating for the preservation of wilderness. He is the author of Grizzly Years; Baja; and Walking It Off and co-author of The Essential Grizzly. Peacock was named a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2011 Lannan Fellow.

In Oakland, California on March 24, 2015 a fire destroyed the AK Press warehouse along with several other businesses. Please consider visiting the AK Press website to learn more about the fundraiser to help them and their neighbors.

Winner of ForeWord Magazine's 2006 Gold Award for Nature Book of the Year

The most comprehensive and compelling chronicle of human-grizzly-bear interactions ever written, In the Presence of Grizzlies (formerly published as The Essential Grizzly) examines the fragile bond between ourselves and the quintessential alpha predator. Doug and Andrea Peacock contend that the conservation of big, wild, sometimes dangerous animals is essential for the survival of our own species and for the sense of humility necessary for rational thought. They explore a wide range of human-grizzly encounters through interviews with biologists, mauling victims, hunters, and photographers. To these they add unique portraits--sketches of real grizzlies from the bear's viewpoint--and up-to-date commentary on such developments as the declassification of grizzlies as an endangered species.

In the Presence of Grizzlies eclipses all existing books on bear behavior and bear attacks, providing readers with a twenty-first-century context for revisiting the original shudder of Homo sapiens--the bear in the cave of our genesis.

Peacock's eagerly awaited tale brings us epic personalities, grizzly bears, the trauma of war, and wilderness adventure. A former Green Beret medic in Vietnam, he was mythologized by Edward Abbey as George Washington Hayduke in his environmental classic, The Monkey Wrench Gang. Described by author David Quammen as an iconic figure, a secular prophet, in the wildass American West, Peacock has become celebrated for his writing, in particular his book Grizzly Years, and his tireless struggle to help preserve what is wild both in and around us.