Battle For The Wilderness

Michael Frome's Battle for the Wilderness is one of the important works of the American conservation movement. Centered on the struggle to pass the 1964 Wilderness Act, the first in a series of preservationist conventions that include the Endangered Species Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, this book offers a well-written, workable definition of wilderness and presents conservation as a vital thread in American history. Part I discusses what the author calls "Wilderness Values," and tells how our primitive lands have inspired many of the foremost American artists and authors, including George Catlin, Frederick Law Olmstead, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold, among others. Part II, Saving the Wilderness, goes on to trace conservation philosophy from its emergence to its culmination in the historic Wilderness Act, and discusses the struggles that took place following passage of the Act. In a completely new preface, Frome ruminates on the relative treatment of the wilderness system under successive administrations, and on recent approaches to the preservation of wild lands. A new appendix lists all wilderness areas now designated in the fifty states.