Slovic's thesis is that the nature writers Henry David Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, and Barry Lopez were preoccupied not only with eternal nature, but with the psychological phenomenon of awareness itself. The interactions they made with nature led them to a better understanding of the human mind, thus achieving a heightened attentiveness to our own place in the natural world. Slovic says, "To write about a problem is not necessarily to produce a solution, but the kindling of consciousness -one's own and one's reader's is a first step - an essential first step." Thus, for Slovic, "Nature writing is a 'literature of hope' in its assumption that the elevation of consciousness may lead to wholesome political change, but this literature is also concerned, and perhaps primarily so, with interior landscapes, with the mind itself."