The Savage Landscape
How We Made the Wilderness
Published on 7. May 2026
Book
Hardback
448 pages
978-0-00-868652-9 (ISBN)
Description
'When I read Flyn's writing I would often exhale with a sense of wonder' GUARDIAN
'Fascinating and masterfully written' ALICE WINN
A lyrical exploration of the world's most forbiddingly remote places, the supposedly uninhabited wildernesses of the world - and the humans who have always been there, by award-winning and critically acclaimed writer Cal Flyn.
The Savage Landscape takes us into the wild - deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It addresses our deep yearnings to be awed and inspired by landscapes that remain beyond our reach and examines what nature gets up to in the absence of humans. It is a book full of ideas, beauty and adventure, and one that asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might be appreciated or preserved.
As with her earlier book Islands of Abandonment, Flyn focuses each chapter on eleven locations chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In her search for wilderness, we meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds seeing off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks; hunters in the African bush; volcanophiles creeping dangerously close to molten lava; and ocean vessels plunging through the immense waters of the Southern Ocean to Antarctica.
The Savage Landscape will change any reader's understanding of our place in the world, and how we relate to the other residents of this planet - human and animal. It is a profound and beautiful book about spirituality, environmentalism and the sublime by one of the most gifted writers at work today.
'A book that takes you into the wild and ignites the imagination. Compelling and thought provoking, Flyn's journey into the heart of the matter challenges us to rethink the relationship between human culture and nature' SUE STUART SMITH
'The Savage Landscape enthralled me-leading me spellbound through our encounters with and imaginings of wilderness and its many faces. In Flyn's hands, a deeply researched history is given vibrant, propulsive life' JESSICA J LEE
'Fascinating and masterfully written' ALICE WINN
A lyrical exploration of the world's most forbiddingly remote places, the supposedly uninhabited wildernesses of the world - and the humans who have always been there, by award-winning and critically acclaimed writer Cal Flyn.
The Savage Landscape takes us into the wild - deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It addresses our deep yearnings to be awed and inspired by landscapes that remain beyond our reach and examines what nature gets up to in the absence of humans. It is a book full of ideas, beauty and adventure, and one that asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might be appreciated or preserved.
As with her earlier book Islands of Abandonment, Flyn focuses each chapter on eleven locations chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In her search for wilderness, we meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds seeing off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks; hunters in the African bush; volcanophiles creeping dangerously close to molten lava; and ocean vessels plunging through the immense waters of the Southern Ocean to Antarctica.
The Savage Landscape will change any reader's understanding of our place in the world, and how we relate to the other residents of this planet - human and animal. It is a profound and beautiful book about spirituality, environmentalism and the sublime by one of the most gifted writers at work today.
'A book that takes you into the wild and ignites the imagination. Compelling and thought provoking, Flyn's journey into the heart of the matter challenges us to rethink the relationship between human culture and nature' SUE STUART SMITH
'The Savage Landscape enthralled me-leading me spellbound through our encounters with and imaginings of wilderness and its many faces. In Flyn's hands, a deeply researched history is given vibrant, propulsive life' JESSICA J LEE
Reviews / Votes
'Like many of us, I share a hankering to seek out wilderness and that thinning of the skin, and am sceptical that mere prose can ever elicit the same intensity of experience. And yet, when I read Flyn's writing I would often exhale with a sense of wonder' Guardian 'Thought-provoking...raises a great many provocative questions...Flyn has a range not often found, and is as much an anthropologist as an observer of nature' The Scotsman 'An intelligent book about our human dilemmas and difficulties with wildernes' Country Life 'Flyn's stamina is matched by acute sensitivity. She has the travel writer's gift for living an experience and simultaneously pinning it to the page. Her research is phenomenal, and she writes compellingly of the history of the places she visits' Spectator 'A profound and extraordinary book. Rich in detail, this book is a superb blend of geography, natural history, myth and religion, environmental science and cultural studies ... The Savage Landscape is as vivid as the mesopelagic waters Cal Flyn so evocatively describes, as diverse as the flora and fauna of New Guinea ... This book is one of the best books I have read in years' Annie Worsley, author of Windswept 'Cal Flyn examines our relationship with the wild places of the earth-and the meaning of wilderness itself-with an unflinching eye. The Savage Landscape is a beguiling book: by turns lyrical, learned, and provocative' Ed Caesar, author of The Moth and the Mountain 'Cal Flyn goes looking for answers to a troublesome question: What is wilderness? The Savage Landscape is a book about searching in the best sense - full of ideas, beauty, doubt and adventures' Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction 'Fascinating and masterfully written, Cal Flyn's The Savage Landscape is an exploration of wildness in both nature and humankind. Brilliant!' Alice Winn, author of In MemoriamMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 41 mm
Weight
584 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-868652-9 (9780008686529)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2026
William Collins
€21.50
Available immediately
E-Book
05/2026
William Collins
€13.99
Available for download
Person
Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland. She writes creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and long-form journalism.
Her first book, Thicker Than Water, about frontier violence in colonial Australia, was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment - about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places - has been shortlisted for numerous literary awards including the Wainwright Prize, the British Academy Book Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction.
Cal's journalistic writing has been published in Granta, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times, The Economist, and others. Cal was previously writer-in-residence at Gladstone's Library and at the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. She was made a MacDowell fellow in 2019, and in 2022 was announced the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.
Her first book, Thicker Than Water, about frontier violence in colonial Australia, was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment - about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places - has been shortlisted for numerous literary awards including the Wainwright Prize, the British Academy Book Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction.
Cal's journalistic writing has been published in Granta, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times, The Economist, and others. Cal was previously writer-in-residence at Gladstone's Library and at the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. She was made a MacDowell fellow in 2019, and in 2022 was announced the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.