Terry Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer,” a writer who speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. Erosion: Essays of Undoing explores the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust.

In Erosion, Williams sizes up the continuing assaults on America’s public lands and the erosion of our commitment to the open space of democracy. She examines the dire cultural and environmental implications of the gutting of Bear Ears National Monument ― sacred lands to Native Peoples of the American Southwest; of the undermining of the Endangered Species Act; of the relentless press by the fossil fuel industry. These essays are Williams’ call to action for blazing a way forward through difficult and dispiriting times. Our undoing is also our becoming.

Williams is the award-winning author of The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks; Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; and When Women Were Birds, among others.