Hope's Horizon

This book brings to literary life attempts to get beyond defensive environmental struggles, particularly in the American West and develop practical, proactive strategies based on grander visions to, as the author terms it, heal the landscape. The author tells the stories of three main efforts and the individuals behind them: the kind of restoration exemplified by the campaign to drain Lake Powell and bring Glen Canyon; reconnection of fragmented habitats, as represented by the Wildlands project (with discussions of Vermont and the Sky Island Project in the Southwest); and abolition of technologies, such as nuclear power, that are environmentally dangerous and unsustainable. The author not only imparts information in an interesting way to the general reader but conveys what's inspirational about these projects and the individuals behind them. All of the book's principles share the fundamental belief that land should be used in the spirit of collaboration with natural systems rather than domination of them.