|
|
|
Book Review
Legacies and Limitations: Environmental Historians Reconsider Progressive
Conservation
Joseph Cullon
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Joseph E. Taylor III. Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the
Northwest Fisheries Crisis. Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1999. xv + 421 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes, biblio-graphic essay,
and index. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-295-97840-6; $22.50 (paper), ISBN 0-295-98114-8.
Karl Jacoby. Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves,
and the Hidden History of American Conservation. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2001. xix + 305 pp. Illustrations, tables,
notes, bibliography, and index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-520-22027-7.
Rebecca Fish Ewan. A Land Between: Owens Valley, California.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xix + 221 pp. Illustrations,
notes, bibliographic essay, and index. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8018-6460-7;
$22.50 (paper), ISBN 0-8018-6461-5.
|
The story of Progressive Era conservation
is so well known that it hardly needs recounting. It is the subject
out of which environmental history emerged as a distinct subfield
in the1960s and is the crucial turning point in almost all histories
of American attitudes toward nature. The central characters—George
Perkins Marsh, Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt,
among others—have received sympathetic and critical biographies.
The histories of natural reserves and the bureaucracies responsible
for their management—the Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation,
the National Park Service—are similarly well known. The artistic
and literary expressions of the movement have received sensitive
and engaging study. The struggles between utilitarians and preservationists,
particularly the climactic battle between Pinchot and Muir over
Hetch Hetchy, make for a notable lecture in survey courses.1
So what more could possibly be said about Progressive Era conservation? |
1
|
|
Actually, a great deal. A new generation
of environmental historians, including those under review here,
have systematically reshaped much of the received wisdom about conservation.
By shifting their attention from symbolic expressions to ecological
results, from national developments to local circumstances, and
from bureaucratic structures to scientific cultures, this cadre
of historians has substantially fractured the traditional narrative
of conservation as the enlightened expression of growing concern
for the natural world. What sets their work apart from earlier historians
is their critical assessment of the core premises underlying early
conservation, their attention to the evolution of scientific and
technical knowledge, and their careful analyses of the impact of
conservation measures upon human and natural communities. The collective
result of their inquiries is not a single narrative that replaces
the older triumphalist tale but a complicated set of stories about
unintended consequences, ecological disasters, and social injustices. |
. . . |
There are about 4430 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
