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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.
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| 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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If there was one issue that dominated all others during McCloskey's environmental career, it was wilderness preservation. He takes issue with William Cronon and other critics who argued that obsessive focus on wilderness retarded the environmental movement. McCloskey counters that the environmental movement never followed such a monomaniacal approach, and that wilderness provides many benefits to humanity. The tenuous existence of the remaining pockets of wilderness made its preservation a priority. McCloskey was not always on the cutting edge, as he admits. He was slow to appreciate some critical environmental issues, such as global warming and international trade agreements. |
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Because of his position in the Sierra Club, a significant chunk of the book covers the internal workings of that organization. McCloskey recounts factional infighting, budget battles, and the pesky IRS, which never seemed sure what tax status best fitted the Club. Clearly he feels that building the Sierra Club up from a regional organization to become a national and international lobbying powerhouse was his greatest achievement. |
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At 365 pages of text in twenty-one chapters, In the Thick of It is a long read as the narrative wades through swamps of detail. Occasional flashes of humor and an appreciation of irony lightens the load. There are a few citations, but as McCloskey notes, his autobiography is culled almost exclusively from his own memory, with some assistance from friends and Sierra Club staff, as well as his back files. |
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In the Thick of It will be a useful primary source for historians of the post-World War II environmental movement. Those interested in public policy or political science will also find it informative for its description of the methods advocacy groups use to affect public policy. |
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Gregory J. Dehler teaches at Front Range Community College, Westminster, Colorado, serves as an editor for H-Environment, and is currently working on a biography of William Temple Hornaday. |
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