{"product_id":"9781911342038","title":"The Story of my Boyhood and Youth: An early years biography of a pioneering environmentalist","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Story of my Boyhood and Youth\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e is the affecting memoir of the now internationally renowned \u003cb\u003eJohn Muir\u003c\/b\u003e, a Scottish-American boy subject to a most unusual upbringing, his transition into adulthood, and the path that led him to petition for the concept of protected national parks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorn in \u003cb\u003eEast Lothian, Scotland\u003c\/b\u003e in 1838, Muir was raised by a fanatically strict, religious father with his numerous brothers and sisters and loving mother. From an early age, a shy Muir showed fascination with the natural world, and at aged eleven, his father announced the family were to move to an American wilderness in Wisconsin – Muir had a new playground.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis adolescence is spent labouring on the family’s grassroots farm. Working seventeen-hour days, an exhausted yet inquisitive Muir desperately snatches moments to himself, yearning to explore the environment around him, secretly studying books on topics other than religion, and rising at 1 a.m. to pursue his hobby of inventing intricate time and energy-saving devices – much to his father’s disapproval and everyone else’s admiration.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt age twenty-two, Muir takes it upon himself to apply to university, and does so without financial or moral support from his father. He makes his way to the \u003cb\u003eUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison\u003c\/b\u003e to study chemistry and botany, and though never graduating with a degree, he is satisfied that he had learned all he wanted to there, before completing the rest of his nature education in ‘the university of the wilderness’.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Story of my Boyhood and Youth\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e includes a new foreword by \u003cb\u003eTerry Gifford\u003c\/b\u003e, and offers insight into the development of Muir’s spiritual connection with the natural world, and suggests an explanation for his passion for freedom in the wilderness, a stark contrast to the forced rigidity of his early years.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vertebrate Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47151316730096,"sku":"9781911342038","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781911342038_p0.jpg?v=1763630646","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781911342038","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}