McPhee, John [Angus] (1931– ),graduate of Princeton, where he has been a professor of journalism, became a staff writer for
The New Yorker in 1965. For its “Profiles” he has written on such diverse people as a professional basketball player from Princeton, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, championship tennis stars, and a nuclear physicist, all reissued as books. His early books on natural history include
Oranges (1967), on the botany, history, and industry of the fruit;
The Pine Barrens (1968), about a wilderness area of New Jersey;
The Survival of the Bark Canoe (1975); and the more substantial
Coming into the Country (1977), about Alaska.
Basin and Range (1981),
In Suspect Terrain (1983), and
Rising from the Plains (1986) resulted from his field trips with geologists. Other recent books include
Outcroppings (1988), drawing on that series in part to deal with western U.S. geology and ecology.
In Suspect Terrain and
Table of Contents (1985), like others, were first printed in
The New Yorker. More essays are brought together in the wide-ranging collection
Irons in the Fire (1997) and another collection of pieces on geology,
Annals of the Former World (1998, Pulitzer Prize).
The Founding Fish (2002) is a study of the American shad.
