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Book Review
| The Ever-Changing View: A History of the National Forests in California. By Anthony Godfrey. (Washington, DC: USDA, 2005. xvi + 657 pp. Illustrations, maps, charts, appendices, bibliography, index. $27.95, paper.)The Lure of the Forest: Oral Histories from the National Forests in California. Compiled by Victor Geraci. (Washington, DC: USDA, 2005. x + 192 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography. $15.95, paper.)Fire in the Forest: A History of Forest Fire Control on the National Forests in California, 1898–1956. By Robert W. Cermak. (Washington, DC: USDA, 2005. x + 442 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, charts, notes, index. $24.95, paper.)
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In 2005, the venerable United States Forest Service decided to pull out all the stops to commemorate its centennial. The result was the "New Century of Service" campaign designed to both observe and celebrate the agency's contributions in managing nearly 200 million acres of public lands with a diversity of projects ranging from documentary film (U. S. Forest Services's The Greatest Good, 2005) and regional histories, to lecture series, folk festivals, and even cookbooks and quilts. The Ever-Changing View, Fire in the Forest, and The Lure of the Forest ably fulfill the Forest Service's commemorative mission by detailing the noteworthy evolution of policy management in California's (eventually) seventeen national forests. |
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The Ever-Changing View provides the most sweeping and thorough review of the region, beginning briefly in "pre-history," but concentrating primarily on the period between 1890 and 1987. Anthony Godfrey's objective is neither an in-depth analysis of the region's relationship to larger Forest Service administrative concerns, nor the recounting of a detailed history of California. What Godfrey has done instead, is write an extremely well-researched, dispassionate, and sometimes critical textbook history of California's national forests. In his detailed chapters, Godfrey chronicles the issues and problems confronting forest managers as the Bear Flag Republic evolved from a mythic Edenic garden into the West's most populated and economically powerful state. His narrative also incorporates the biographies of District/Region 5 supervisors, archival photographs, and national events to provide historical context, as managers grappled for power with the Park Service and shifted administrative priorities from Gifford Pinchot's early wise-use conservation, to scientific management, multiple-use/sustained yield, and ecosystem management. Importantly, Godfrey's history is fair-minded: "the accomplishments and failures of the office of silviculture in the pre-World War I period were many and indicated a preoccupation with the timber industry," he writes (p. 136). And later, of the 1970s, Godfrey laments that "the Forest Service in California was emphasizing timber harvesting to the detriment of other resources" (p. 485). While this cut-centric focus is not a revelation to many historians, it is refreshing to see it finally acknowledged by an agency that fought the characterization for so long. In the end, Godfrey concludes, the once-revered Forest Service is an agency still struggling: with sustainability, with environmental and cultural resource issues, with economic woes, and with the "analysis paralysis" that thrust Region 5 "into a whirlpool of indecision" by the end of the twentieth century (p. 529). |
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Godfrey's research draws heavily at times from Robert Cermak's tidy Fire in the Forest, which, though more limited in scope, nevertheless provides a helpful chronicle of the "trial and error" evolution of fire control in Region 5 between 1905 and 1955 (p. ix). Cermak's study opens with a useful survey of California's physical geography—its climate, vegetation (or "fuels"), drought cycles, and wind patterns—before delving into the vagaries of the Forest Service's commitment to fire "control." As he discusses the influence of the automobile, wars, urban and suburban sprawl, and fire-fighting innovations on fire management, Cermak also manages to sprinkle in some humorous anecdotes about the agency; the so-called "Noble Fiasco," for example, revealed the folly of air-dropping five-gallon buckets of water to "splash out" forest fires in the 1930s. At times, Cermak's level of detail is tedious—few readers may appreciate the historic relative humidity levels and wind speeds at major fires—but the author's thorough research certainly reinforces Godfrey's critique of an agency beholden to the timber industry. "The ascendancy of timber sales in the Forest Service led to a diminished priority for fire control, even though officially this was disavowed," he reveals (p. 294). Unfortunately, Cermak's research only dates to 1988, which leaves much of the recent scholarship on fire, including the fine work of Steven Pyne, untouched. Yet, in revealing "what happened on the ground," including the specifics from some of California's more notable and deadly fires, Cermak provides a valuable narrative of events that, until now, has remained largely unknown to those not intimately familiar with Forest Service archives. |
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Complementing this Region 5 ensemble is The Lure of the Forest, a collection of oral histories from those who worked in the Golden State's forests. Organized thematically, the interviews explore why these men and women joined the Forest Service, the challenges they faced on the job, and "the heartwarming stories that naturally radiate from oral histories" (p. x). As a stand-alone work, these remembrances will likely only interest those who know the forest and its stewards, but they will surely be well-cited in other histories of the region. And this, in the end, is the real value of this trio. Singly and collectively these Forest Service publications provide a solid and informative institutional history to which scholars and students will turn to enrich their own research and writing. |
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| Sara Dant Ewert
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| Weber State University |
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ISSN 1939-8603
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