Pioneer Conservationists of Western America by Peter Wild
1980; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wal.1980.0086
ISSN1948-7142
Autores Tópico(s)Rangeland and Wildlife Management
ResumoReviews 43 pioneer Conservationists of Western America. By Peter Wild. (Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1979. 236 pages, $12.95.) In Pioneer Conservationists of Westem America Wild has chosen 15 colorful personalities and has written a lively, highly readable short profile on each, and of his part in debates over the disposition of natural resources in the American west. The author concentrates on their human dimensions, with their foibles, "warts," and limitations generally well handled. As Wild has largely chosen writers and personalities for his list, some of them had little to do with shaping the outcome of actual conflicts. Joseph Wood Krutch's writings stopped none of the highways which he abhorred; nor did Mary Austin's writings stop Hoover dam. No one will argue that those on his list are unimportant: John Wesley Powell, John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, Stephen Mather, Enos Mills, Mary Austin, Aldo Leopold, Bernard De Voto, Olaus Murie, Joseph Wood Krutch, William O. Douglas, David Brower, Garrett Hardin, Stewart Udall, and Edward Abbey. However, the least known on this list - Enos Mills - epitomizes the problem with the selection. He is the only one on the list who is remembered less for his writings than for what he actually accomplished. As the father of Rocky Mountain National Park, he spent his life living in the west, close to the land, and worked unremittingly to save it. The majority of those on Wild's list lived mainly,outside the west and were either writers or administrators. Even granting the fact that there is more of a ready-made market for a book about historically established figures, how can one pick Olaus Murie ?ver Robert Marshall, or even Howard Zahniser (Wild gives the mistaken Impression that Murie rather than Zahniser was the dominant figure in the :Wilderness Society in shaping the battle for the Wilderness Act)? In pickmg Stephen Mather over Horace Albright, one regrets that Albright's real work behind the scenes is slighted. Where are political figures like Harold I<;kes, Hugh Bennett, and Richard Neuberger in the period between Gifford Pmchot and Stewart Udall? . C?ne also is reminded of how difficult it is to put accomplishments into hlstoflcal perspective. Leaders in the last two decades have been able to ~ccomplish much more, in many ways, than those who were most active lll. the preceding two or three decades. With a less favorable political chmate, those working earlier could accomplish far less. Yet, their qualities of leadership may have been just as great. However, even more ironically tOday's victories have come so quickly that fcw today even know the names of the leaders who have opened the way to success. They are lost in the anonymity of a wide-ranging environmental movement. Ab Of the profiles in the book, the ones on Pinchot, Mills, De Voto, and bey struck me as the most interesting. The one on Powell leaves one Wondering whether Powell, were he to be alive today, would be primarily a technological optimist or a believer in the era of limits. So little is said 44 Western American Literature in the profile about the relationship between his philosophy and today's environmental thinking that it is hard to evaluate the continuing relevance of his ideas. For instance, would he now favor repeal of the 160-acre limit on federally subsidized irrigation water (Powell once argued that western farmers should get no less than 2,560 acres of federal land)? In fact. throughout the profiles the author says too little about the substance of their basic ideas (it is assumed this is understood) . Occasionally, the book does stray into mis-statements. In dealing with a few incidents involving the Sierra Club, for instance, the author errs. Wild states that prior to hiring its first executive director in 1952 (David Brower) "the Sierra Club had not won a single major environmental battle in the thirty-eight years since Muir's death." That statement is simply. wrong. The expansion of Sequoia National Park in 1926 and the establish~' ment of Kings Canyon National Park in 1940 constituted the major battles the Sierra Club took on and won in the inner-war years. Moreover, the book is wrong in stating that a change of opinion occurred in the Club between 1972 and 1974 which made it possible for Edward Abbey to write for it (Slickrock). There was never any change of heart about protecting the canyon country of southern Utah nor about the value of attracting writers like Abbey. ' MICHAEL McCLOSKEY, Sierra Club The Rockies: High Where the Wind is Lonely. Photographs by Shin Sugino. Text by Jon Whyte. (Agincourt, Ontario: Gage Publishing, 1978. 96 pages, $8.95.) Many readers will find this book interesting, informative, delightful, perhaps moving: interesting, because John Whyte presents an amazing amount of data on aspects of the history of the Canadian Rockies and surpassingly vivid descriptions of the mountains through the changing seasons; moving because the photographs of Shin Sugino present views of some of the most magnificent scenery in North America. This reader, however, would have found the book more interesting and informative were it not for an editorial decision to deny the photographs any identifications or explanations relating them to the text. Standing alone, impressive as is their subject matter, their isolation deprives the reader of insights that might be found in closer articulation with the written material. Whyte's opening section, "Where Winter is King," ably condenses some of the history of Canadian Rocky Mountain exploration, beginning with the travels in 1800 of Hudson Bay employee, David Thompson, whose ...
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