| Book Review | Environmental History, 11.3

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 11.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra Club. Michael McCloskey. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005. xv + 399 pp. Index, notes. $29.95.

From 1959 to 1999 Michael McCloskey served the cause of environmental protection. He began his career on the conservation committee for a local group in his native Oregon called the Obsidians and ended his career as chairman of the Sierra Club. He attributes his rise and success to his persistence, legal training, and political skills. McCloskey's environmental movement is not the one where dashing and charismatic advocates overwhelm opposition simply with the force of their ideas, or where dramatic street protests dictate public policy. Instead, the environmental movement McCloskey reveals is the one in which most of the battles are fought over Forest Service zoning regulations or in the courts over legal technicality, and in which legislation larded with pork is sometimes necessary to get a bill, like the Redwood National Park, passed. McCloskey's interest in politics was not solely due to necessity. From his youth, he was fascinated with politics and thought he would pursue it as a career. A variety of circumstances led him to reconsider and devote his life to the cause of environmental protection. Throughout the book McCloskey positions himself in the pragmatic center of the environmental movement, not afraid of compromise, but not fearful of playing hardball either. He despairs of those who operate outside of the political system to affect change.

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