Steven Rinella chronicles his lifelong relationship with nature and hunting through the lens of several hunts, beginning when he was an aspiring mountain man at age ten and ending as a thirty-seven-year-old Brooklyn father who hunts in the remotest corners of North America, feeding his family from the food he hunts. He tells of having a struggling career as a fur trapper just as fur prices were falling; of a dalliance with catch-and-release steelhead fishing; of canoeing in the Missouri Breaks in search of mule deer just as the Missouri River was freezing up one November; and of hunting the elusive Dall sheep in the glaciated mountains of Alaska. Through each story, Steven grapples with themes such as the role of the hunter in shaping America, the vanishing frontier, the ethics of killing, the allure of hunting trophies, the responsibilities that human predators have to their prey, and the disappearance of the hunter himself as Americans lose their connection with the way their food finds its way to their tables. Hunting, he argues, is intimately connected with our humanity; assuming responsibility for acquiring the meat that we eat, rather than entrusting it to proxy executioners, processors, packagers, and distributors, is one of the most respectful and exhilarating things a meat eater can do. A thrilling storyteller with boundless interesting facts and historical information about the land, the natural world, and the history of hunting, Steven paints a loving portrait of a way of life that is part of who we are as humans and as Americans.

Through visceral personal stories drawn from thirty years as a modern-day hunter-gatherer, Steven Rinella discusses the logistical, legal and physical challenges of procuring one’s entire intake of meat from the wild. Rinella has hunted and fished for literally hundreds of species of North American wild game, and the tales of his culinary adventures are inspiring, eye-opening, and sometimes shocking.

The American buffalo, or bison, is the perfect example of an interdisciplinary subject that can be made readily applicable to just about every conscientious American's life. A proper understanding of this great beast's history requires tidbits of knowledge on such wide-ranging subjects as anthropology, paleontology, pop music, philanthropy, Nineteenth century politics, paleoecology, the layout of New York City, ballistics, genetics, American cinema, political correctness, and something called horn-core morphology. From its arrival in the New World to its near extirpation and its unlikely salvation, Steven Rinella explains the saga of the American buffalo with a style that critics have likened to a cross between John McPhee and Hunter S. Thompson.

Since Biblical times, humans have debated the necessity and moral implications of the hunting lifestyle. Today, that debate still rages in American culture. But while some argue that hunting is an anachronistic throwback to our barbaric past, others claim that hunting is a form of environmental enlightenment that fosters a strong conservation ethic and a love of the land. Lifelong hunter Steven Rinella is able to frame and inform that debate in an honest, open style, offering insights that will challenge everyone's assumptions -- be they hunter or anti-hunter.