introduction: fifty years of wildlife in america

Historians who have written about wildlife in North America have told their stories in many ways: as tales of ecological decline, tragedies of the commons, chronicles of scientific discovery, parables of ethical redemption, clashes of values, reorganizations of spatial relationships, expansions of federal authority, and struggles of conservation versus social justice. This essay introduces the "Fifty Years of Wildlife in America" forum. The forum includes ten short articles that consider the legacy of Peter Matthiessen's classic 1959 book, Wildlife in America, explore how wildlife scholarship has changed in the half century since, and chart new directions for historical research on the interactions between people and wild animals on the continent.