Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays articlate the belief that the thinkers and actors who helped develop the conservation movement have been seriously misunderstood by scholars who have analyzed them in the context of contemporary environmental debates.
Trade ReviewHow muddled and feckless today's most prominent champions of environmentalism appear, when compared with Muir, Pinchot, Leopold, Theodore Roosevelt, Emerson, Thoreau, and Olmstead, the giants of the preservation and conservation movements of a century ago. In revisiting their legacy, Conservation Reconsidered explores the fundamental tensions, challenges, possibilities, and promise of environmentalism today. The conservationists and their critics framed the environmental debates that have endured.With a clarity that has not been improved on since, they defined how we can view our place in nature, and the different objectives we pursue in protecting it. The ten essays of Conservation Reconsidered are informed, serious, thoughtful, and a real pleasure to read. Every serious student of environmental politics in America should begin here, where it all began. r is the . -- Peter Huber, author of Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists
Conservation Reconsidered may begin to provide for conservatives a way out of the political wilderness. * Claremont Review of Books *
...a provocative critique of the assumptions about natural resource philosophy and history is 20th century America. * The Quarterly Review Of Biology *
The contrast between the founding conservationists of the Progressive Era and their would-be successors among today's environmentalists is made strikingly clear in this indispensable book. Hats off to Charles Rubin for assembling a collection of thinkers equal to the task of reviving the original conservation tradition. -- Steven Hayward Ph.D, author of Index of Leading Environmental Indicators
How muddled and feckless today's most prominent champions of environmentalism appear, when compared with Muir, Pinchot, Leopold, Theodore Roosevelt, Emerson, Thoreau, and Olmstead, the giants of the preservation and conservation movements of a century ago. In revisiting their legacy, Conservation Reconsidered explores the fundamental tensions, challenges, possibilities, and promise of environmentalism today. The conservationists and their critics framed the environmental debates that have endured. With a clarity that has not been improved on since, they defined how we can view our place in nature, and the different objectives we pursue in protecting it. The ten essays of Conservation Reconsidered are informed, serious, thoughtful, and a real pleasure to read. Every serious student of environmental politics in America should begin here, where it all began. r is the . -- Peter Huber, author of
Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Preface Part 2 Conservationalists Chapter 3 Saving the Wilderness for Sacramental Use: John Muir Chapter 4 "With Utter Disregard of Pain and Woe:" Theodore Roosevelt on Conservation and Nature Chapter 5 Gifford Pinchot, Founder: A New Look at Breaking New Ground Chapter 6 Aldo Leopold's Human Ecology Part 7 Precursors Chapter 8 Charles Darwin and John Muir Chapter 9 The Mystery of Nature and Culture: Ralph Waldo Emerson Chapter 10 Henry David Thoreau Chapter 11 Frederick Law Olmstead: Civic Environmentalist Chapter 12 Afterword
