In the visionary tradition of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, One Square Inch of Silence alerts us to beauty that we take for granted and sounds an urgent environmental alarm. Natural silence is our nation’s fastest-disappearing resource, warns Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, who has made it his mission to record and preserve it in all its variety—before these soul-soothing terrestrial soundscapes vanish completely in the ever-rising din of man-made noise. Recalling the great works on nature written by John Muir, John McPhee, and Peter Matthiessen, this beautifully written narrative, co-authored with John Grossmann, is also a quintessentially American story—a road trip across the continent from west to east in a 1964 VW bus. But no one has crossed America like this. Armed with his recording equipment and a decibel-measuring sound-level meter, Hempton bends an inquisitive and loving ear to the varied natural voices of the American landscape—bugling elk, trilling thrushes, and drumming, endangered prairie chickens. He is an equally patient and perceptive listener when talking with people he meets on his journey about the importance of quiet in their lives. By the time he reaches his destination, Washington, D.C., where he meets with federal officials to press his case for natural silence preservation, Hempton has produced a historic and unforgettable sonic record of America. With the incisiveness of Jack Kerouac’s observations on the road and the stirring wisdom of Robert Pirsig repairing an aging vehicle and his life, One Square Inch of Silence provides a moving call to action. More than simply a book, it is an actual place, too, located in one of America’s last naturally quiet places, in Olympic National Park in Washington State.

戈登·汉普顿，声音生态学家，艾美奖获奖录音师。作品获林白基金会、美国国家艺术基金会，以及劳力士“雄才伟略大奖”肯定。《时人》杂志、公共电视网一部全国性电视纪录片，以及汉普顿的新声音纪录系列“环境声音画像”，曾特别报道他的声音画像。其公视纪录片《消失的黎明大合唱》为他赢 得艾美奖“杰出个人成就奖”。目前居住在华盛顿州安吉利斯港。

约翰·葛洛斯曼，自由撰稿人，作品散见于《奥杜邦》、《君子》、《国家地理旅行者》、《纽约时报杂志》、《户外》、《大观》、《美味》、《史密森杂志》、《运动画刊》、《美国周末》等杂志。目前居住在新泽西州山湖镇。