At the Wilderness Edge

Reviews / Votes

"Some cultural historians treat resistance as a terminus to analysis, rather than a spur to new questions. Little is no such historian. He charts the why, how, and who of these movements [revealing} a deep seated civic will that the city comes out on top." Literary Review of Canada "As a Vancouver-based and -bred environmental historian, I enjoyed this book enormously and learned a great deal about paths I've trodden and slopes I've skied. I expect At the Wilderness Edge will gain a considerable audience in the region, and deservedly so. It will be interesting to see if other environmental historians address this important, proto-environmental phase in Canadian development politics to allow for wider comparative insights to emerge." Matthew Evenden, NiCHE: Network in Canada History & Environment "At the Wilderness Edge breaks new ground by exploring a series of complex local antidevelopment campaigns that helped to open up and support new aspects of progressive political culture in British Columbia." Michael Dawson, St Thomas University "This lively and extensively researched history of popular challenges to development projects in and around Vancouver in the 1960s and '70s makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the emerging environmentalist movement in this period, and the motivations and social positions of its constituents." Jennifer Bonnell, York University "Little's study has much to recommend it. Above all, it highlights Vancouver's Janus-faced relationship with its natural environment. Little has made an important contribution to the literature on the environmental history of southern British Columbia." BC Studies "In At the Wilderness Edge, Little's assessment of the process through which antidevelopment protests were effective is broken down into five chapters, each devoted to a particular protest. The book is easily accessible and is recommended for those interested in environmentalism in general, and environmental policy and successful environmental movements in particular." British Journal of Canadian Studies

"The author explores in great detail five different cases where various types of development projects were thwarted by or with the help of local antidevelopment movements. At the Wilderness Edge is an interesting and useful contribution to the history of these fragmented and understudied groups and actors that seem to form a much larger tapestry not only on the West Coast but also, ... , throughout North America from the 1970s on." HNet