Making America's Public Lands

Reviews / Votes

Before the American Revolution, the British prevented colonists' westward expansion near the Atlantic Coast via the Proclamation Line of 1763. After the Revolution, the young nation sought ways to offer new settlers the public land inherited from the new states. According to Sowards, this involved a host of scholars and a plethora of special interests and government agencies, which he highlights, but dispersal failed to be easy over time. The issue of land use is old but is as relevant as today's news. Finding ways of conserving vast forests, mountains, wilderness, deserts, and waterways has bedeviled the nation in light of its economic and capitalistic impulses. In short, a vast number of government agencies and private organizations have attempted conservation but sometimes failed at the task. In competition with public interest, special interests often win but are sometimes thwarted in favor of the public. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. * Choice Reviews * America's public lands began in paradoxes that each generation has had to renegotiate. Adam Sowards deftly traces this complex narrative and shows the pressure points most vital today. Thoughtful, judicious, graceful, accessible - Making America's Public Lands is a great place to begin any inquiry into the curious creation of a public estate in a country committed to private property. -- Stephen Pyne, author of Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America With care and discernment, historian Adam Sowards listens to the cacophonous stories of these remarkable landscapes, amplifying their legacies and lessons for all those with a stake in "the public's land." -- Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction This book is a must-read for every aspiring land manager and every American who values their public lands. Adam Sowards takes readers on a well-written and engaging journey through the history of these lands, highlighting the sometimes glorious and sometimes complicated nature of their evolution. His depiction of them as places around which we all physically, emotionally, and spiritually gather is essential for moving us beyond thinking of our own individual relationship to these lands and considering our relationship to others and to our nation through them. Adam's poignant and timely work reminds us how precious our public lands are and how delicate an endeavor preserving them has been and continues to be. -- Leisl Carr Childers, author of The Size of the Risk: Histories of Multiple Use in the Great Basin Because of both its wide breadth and short length, Making America's Public lands will be useful to many readers. It will easily avail itself to anyone interested in public lands and both undergraduate and graduate classes to introduce the complicated history of the U.S. environment, readily bringing them to the table of the topic. * Pacific Historical Review *