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Book Review
| The Forests of Michigan. By Donald I. Dickmann and Larry A. Leefers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. 304 pp. Illustrations, tables, maps, and bibliography. Cloth $55.00, paper $29.95; Michigan's State Forests: A Century of Stewardship. By William B. Botti and Michael D. Moore. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2006. xx + 201 pp. Illustration, tables, map, notes, and bibliography, and index. Paper $29.95.
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| I read these books as a research scientist (a forest ecologist) with an interest in history and how it can inform an understanding of today's landscape. Both describe history, but not as historians might write, describing aspects of the well-known Lake States' forest experience of the last 150 years—forest plunder, further destruction by fire, then the building of institutions, and rebuilding a new forest landscape. |
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Michigan's State Forests was written by two retired foresters, both professional agency field foresters, each with over thirty years with Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Both moved up the agency administrative ranks (Moore as a former director). The book is written for managers and an informed public. Authors Botti and Moore use a wealth of government archives to document the agency and institution-building needed to grow the new forests of the last century. But rather than bringing these sources to bear on a question or thesis, they merely document a story of destruction, challenge, adversity, and triumph by dedicated forest managers. It is in many respects a true tale. In general, society and governments at all levels had not anticipated getting this land back; it was supposed to become farms. |
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