American Bear

An unforgettable deep dive into the history, mythos, and cultural significance of America’s wildest survivor, the black bear—from the host of the wildly popular MeatEater podcast Bear Grease

For seven generations, the Newcomb family has hunted, observed, and lived alongside the American black bear in the wilds of Arkansas. In this eye-opening, wondrous exploration, Clay Newcomb, the renowned host of MeatEater’s Bear Grease podcast, and an avid hunter, conservationist, and storyteller, travels across North America in search of them, bringing the world of these remarkable creatures to life, and cementing their significance in the heart of the American experience.

Part natural history, part campfire‑storytelling, and part untold ancient and American history, American Bear explores why bears have been revered, feared, hunted, and misunderstood for millennia—and why their comeback is one of the greatest conservation successes of the century. Newcomb tracks the black bear’s astonishing arc as its basal ancestors journeyed from Paleolithic Asia to the Bering Land Bridge, where the arctic climate shapes them into master generalists, gorging on Whiteoak acorns and vanishing into winter dens for months without food or water. We follow the bears to various Indigenous communities who venerate them as spiritually significant, powerful beings; to the frontier era, when market hunters nearly erased a bear species that had once thrived; to modern-day suburbia, where regular encounters demonstrate bears’ explosive adaptability as we learn to live as close neighbors.

Both a captivating personal narrative, and a work of environmental and historical significance, American Bear tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies both our endurance and our ethos.