America's Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond

by Randall K. Wilson

Overview

How it is that the United States—the country that cherishes the ideal of private property more than any other in the world—has chosen to set aside nearly one-third of its land area as public lands? Now in a fully revised and updated edition covering the first years of the Trump administration, Randall Wilson considers this intriguing question, tracing the often-forgotten ideas of nature that have shaped the evolution of America’s public land system. The result is a fresh and probing account of the most pressing policy and management challenges facing national parks, forests, rangelands, and wildlife refuges today.

The author explores the dramatic story of the origins of the public domain, including the century-long effort to sell off land and the subsequent emergence of a national conservation ideal. Arguing that we cannot fully understand one type of public land without understanding its relation to the rest of the system, he provides in-depth accounts of the different types of public lands. With chapters on national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, Bureau of Land Management lands, and wilderness areas, Wilson examines key turning points and major policy debates for each land type, including recent Trump Administration efforts to roll back environmental protections. He considers debates ranging from national monument designations and bison management to gas and oil drilling, wildfire policy, the bark beetle epidemic, and the future of roadless and wilderness conservation areas. His comprehensive overview offers a chance to rethink our relationship with America’s public lands, including what it says about the way we relate to, and value, nature in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442207974
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/16/2014
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Randall K. Wilson is professor of environmental studies at Gettysburg College. The first edition of America’s Public Lands won the J. B. Jackson Prize from the American Association of Geographers.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction: Why Public Lands?

Rethinking Old Stories

Setting the Stage

Part I: ORIGINS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

1 Building the National Commons

Colonial Antecedents

The National Commons Expands

The Federal Indian Reserved Lands

Summing Up

2 Disposing of the Public Domain: From Commons to

Commodity

Privatizing the Commons: Two Visions

The Homestead Acts, Land Grants, and Railroads

Logging, Ranching, and Mining

Federal Indian Reserved Lands Revisited

The First Public Land Policy?

3 A Public Land System Emerges

Tragedy of the National Commons

From Crisis to Conservation

Building the Public Land System

Part II: AMERICA’S PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM

4 National Parks

The Story of Yellowstone

John Muir and Yosemite

Teddy Roosevelt and the Antiquities Act

The Fight for Hetch Hetchy

Stephen Mather and the National Park Service

The Jackson Hole Conflict and Postwar Expansion

Stewart Udall, Jimmy Carter, and Alaska

From Deregulation to Collaboration. .. and Back Again

Parks in the Twenty-First Century

The 2016 Park Service Centennial and Beyond

Cases

5 National Forests

The First Forest Reserves

The 1897 Forest Organic Act

Gifford Pinchot and the USDA Forest Service

A Burning Issue: Fire Policy

The Idea of Multiple Use

Clear-Cutting, NFMA, and Below-Cost Timber Sales

Conflict Soars to New Heights: The Northern Spotted Owl

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003

The Twenty-First Century and the Triple Threat

Coming Full Circle

Cases

6 National Wildlife Refuges

Who Owns Wildlife? State Rights and the Separation of Land and Life

Sport Hunting and Conservation, or When a Refuge Is Not a Refuge

The First (Actual) National Wildlife Refuge

Going International to Save the National Commons

Building a Federal Wildlife Agency

But What Are Refuges For?

Turning the Corner to Conservation

The 2000s: From Deregulation to Historic Expansion

Refuges under Siege

Cases

7 Bureau of Land Management Lands

Rethinking the Unwanted Lands: John Wesley Powell

Tragedies of the (Rangeland) Commons

The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934

Creating the BLM

The BLM Organic Act

1980s and 1990s: From Sagebrush Rebellion to Rangeland Reform

Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument

The National Landscape Conservation System

The New Century: To Drill or Not to Drill?

What Will the BLM Stand For?

Cases

8 National Wilderness Preservation System

Origins: The Wilderness Idea

Aldo Leopold and the First Wilderness

Bob Marshall and the Wilderness Society

Howard Zahniser and the Wilderness Act of 1964

The Wilderness Act in Practice

Wilderness and the National Forests

Expanding the Wilderness System

The Next Fifty Years

Cases

9 National Wild and Scenic Rivers and Trails

Wild and Scenic Rivers

Case: The Klamath River

National Scenic and Historic Trails

Case: The North Country Trail

10 Parting Thoughts

Mapping Conceptual Continuities

Diversity within the Public Land System

The Promise of Collaborative Conservation

Appendix A: Major U.S. Public Land Laws and Other Key Turning Points

Appendix B: Units within the National Park System

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

This book is a significant addition to the literature on US federal lands.  Wilson organized the text around land management agencies rather than temporal order of land preservation action, taking a fresh look at differences in agency missions and public perceptions.  The book works on multiple levels, blending individuals and landscapes.  Part 1, in three chapters, reviews the history of the disposition of lands in the country.  The cycle of land distribution and subsequent conservation actions is succinctly but richly presented.  Present and future land use opportunities and challenges clearly have their origins in past decisions.  Part 2, in six chapters, presents the national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, and the National Wilderness Preservation System (of rivers and trails).  The chapter on the BLM is an exceptional contribution to the public lands literature.  A final chapter synthesizes the author's perspective on federal public lands.  Extremely well researched, this is a treasure trove of facts and explanations that distills a huge literature of historical, scholarly, and popular origins.  It is destined to be a highly cited classic in land management. Summing Up: Essential. All students, researchers/faculty, professionals/practitioners, and general readers.

CHOICE

Wilson provides a complete history, from colonial times, of what it took to build the national commons.... He tells a compelling and disturbing story of hunger, greed, and hubris in the history of land acquisition in the United States and in the disposition of these lands into private hands.

Public Administration Review

Wilson offers a well-written, thoughtful, and ambitious synthesis of the story of America’s public lands that (literally!) covers a great deal of ground clearly and concisely. In addition to providing a historical narrative of how the nation’s public lands system came together, Wilson contextualizes the story more broadly, seeing how the various components of the system (the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, etc.) reflect different notions of nature and economic development. He also offers a framework for examining current issues that involve public land policies and uses. Wilson’s personal enthusiasm for America’s public lands runs clearly throughout the book and his hope is that this overview will add to greater public and scholarly awareness of the system and the settings it protects. . . .The book should be required reading for North American historical geographers, historians of the American West and public lands, employees in a wide assortment of public agencies, and for anyone interested in why one-third of the United States looks the way it does.

Journal of Historical Geography

Randall Wilson’s America’s Public Lands provides a useful introduction to the history and politics of the vast array of federal land programs. . . .Wilson has fashioned a readable, well-informed volume that builds on existing scholarship (including his own research on collaborative management) to construct a framework for understanding the essentially contested nature of our public lands as the setting for both resource exploitation and natural preservation. . . .The book is well designed as an introductory text for courses on federal land policy or western environmental history. It offers a clear and inviting narrative, an extensive bibliography to guide student research, and a sophisticated analytical blend of institutional politics and cultural change. . . .Wilson’s comprehensive view offers much to engage experts as well, showing the political and ideological underpinnings of land issues that span all these agencies.

Environmental History

This book is a treasure for those looking for a thoughtful and efficient introduction to the history of our nation's public lands. Wilson successfully captures the drama of this still-unfolding story and challenges us to engage with the incredible legacy that public lands represent as well as the innate difficulties that come along with managing and protecting these areas.

Neil Kornze

Unprecedented in scope and depth, this important work traces the American public lands system to its origins and in the process challenges the ways we think about our vast heritage. Meticulously researched and artfully written, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the 650 million acres of federally managed lands in the United States.

Howard R. Ernst

America’s Public Lands is a wonderful introductory book for those interested in federal land management practice and law. It contains enough detailed analysis of contemporary issues to engage those familiar with the subject while it is broad enough to give nascent readers to the field a fine single volume that encapsulates much of what has been argued on the subject over the last several decades.The book’s most interesting premise is that public lands need to be addressed as one system and not a collection of fiefdoms divided by bureaucratic borders. Wilson’s unifying concept is being advocated at the highest levels in Washington, D.C., and it was voiced by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in his first policy speech on the national forests in Seattle in 2009.

The American Historian

America's Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond considers how it's come to be that a nation that cherishes the ideal of private property has methodically set aside nearly a third of its territory as public lands, and provides a history of the making of America's public land system. Chapters do more than chart the usual evolution of parklands and policies: they consider the origins of the idea of public domain and access, considering forces towards privatization and conservation and how they interacted to produce the parklands system we have today. Chapters cover national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas and provide discussions surrounding policy debates and establishment processes for many of country's top wildlife areas, making this a far more wide-ranging survey than the usual parklands history approach, and a highly recommended pick for any who would understand the bigger picture involved in parklands creation, history, and management.

Midwest Book Review

This book is a significant addition to the literature on US federal lands.  Wilson organized the text around land management agencies rather than temporal order of land preservation action, taking a fresh look at differences in agency missions and public perceptions.  The book works on multiple levels, blending individuals and landscapes.  Part 1, in three chapters, reviews the history of the disposition of lands in the country.  The cycle of land distribution and subsequent conservation actions is succinctly but richly presented.  Present and future land use opportunities and challenges clearly have their origins in past decisions.  Part 2, in six chapters, presents the national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, and the National Wilderness Preservation System (of rivers and trails).  The chapter on the BLM is an exceptional contribution to the public lands literature.  A final chapter synthesizes the author's perspective on federal public lands.  Extremely well researched, this is a treasure trove of facts and explanations that distills a huge literature of historical, scholarly, and popular origins.  It is destined to be a highly cited classic in land management. Summing Up: Essential. All students, researchers/faculty, professionals/practitioners, and general readers.

Choice

Thanks to Randall Wilson, we now have a splendid perch from which to view the broad sweep of public lands management in the United States, both spatially and temporally. Eschewing the hackneyed nature-as-commodity versus nature-as-wilderness dichotomy in favor of an approach that tacks much closer to reality, Wilson reminds us that resource conservation and management is—and always has been—a messy business. Perhaps most important, he provides us with the context, tools, and inspiration we need to find common ground as a people and address the environmental challenges that confront us in the twenty-first century.

Geoffrey L. Buckley

Wilson’s America’s Public Lands set a new standard in bringing the US public domain into clear view for a broad array of readers. The second edition keeps pace admirably with the changes afoot in environmental politics with Wilson’s deft insight, nuance, and wide-ranging expertise. The book guides us to understand the significance of America’s public lands and teaches us not to take these lands and waters for granted.

David Havlick

This valuable new edition of Randall Wilson’s prize-winning book on public lands offers timely updates on Obama and Trump administration legislation and important new material on wild and scenic rivers and trails. Wilson also serves up plenty of fresh examples that reflect the author’s ongoing passion for America’s greatest gift to itself. If you love the nation’s public lands, you will love this book!

William Wyckoff

Thanks to Randall Wilson, we now have a splendid perch from which to view the broad sweep of public lands management in the United States, both spatially and temporally. Eschewing the hackneyed nature-as-commodity versus nature-as-wilderness dichotomy in favor of an approach that tacks much closer to reality, Wilson reminds us that resource conservation and management is--and always has been--a messy business. Perhaps most important, he provides us with the context, tools, and inspiration we need to find common ground as a people and address the environmental challenges that confront us in the twenty-first century.

This valuable new edition of Randall Wilson's prize-winning book on public lands offers timely updates on Obama and Trump administration legislation and important new material on wild and scenic rivers and trails. Wilson also serves up plenty of fresh examples that reflect the author's ongoing passion for America's greatest gift to itself. If you love the nation's public lands, you will love this book!

Wilson's America's Public Lands set a new standard in bringing the US public domain into clear view for a broad array of readers. The second edition keeps pace admirably with the changes afoot in environmental politics with Wilson's deft insight, nuance, and wide-ranging expertise. The book guides us to understand the significance of America's public lands and teaches us not to take these lands and waters for granted.

From the Publisher

Randall Wilson’s America’s Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond is an exemplary work on the history of United States’ public lands and national park systems.... America’s Public Lands is clear and concise, and gives a thorough but succinct overview of the public lands system..... Winner of the 2014 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Prize by the American Association of Geographers, the book wonderfully displays the successes, failures, and controversies surrounding the park system and other public lands. It is a gift to the historical geographical community as the National Park Service enters its second century. It gives an insightful overview of historic viewpoints toward nature that allows readers to question the way they see public lands and the way they value these areas in the twenty-first century.

Historical Geography

Essential reading for those interested in how Americans value nature and how they use their collectively owned lands.

Forest History Today

At long last! A single-volume history of America’s public lands that celebrates the miracle of their existence but never shies away from the messy contradictions, conflicts, and injustice that make up their history. This is the plain-language, people's political ecology of our treasured landscapes.

Paul Robbins

Effective. . . . Admirable. . . . By placing these public lands institutions in tension with one another, Wilson does something more than provide an up-to-date history and mission analysis of the agencies that oversee public lands; America’s Public Lands, perhaps for the first time, combines these histories and contemporary contestations in a single text, situating each of the institutions within a larger ideology, discourse, and practice of conservation and intentional management. . . . Wilson envelops these conceptualizations into lived realities and practices, ultimately demonstrating how ideas turn into institutions that are dynamic, but also deeply rooted in their pasts. . . . The first text in nearly two decades . . . to treat the public land system as a coherent whole, part of a larger ideological and managerial project. In this regard, the text has no contemporaries, as it provides a single academic resource that revels in these lands’ existence, but does so in a way that does not avoid the paradoxes, incongruities, struggles, and inequalities that help formulate their contemporary management. . . . Wilson’s book offers readers a chance to reconsider our complex, multifaceted, and often ironic relationships with public lands in the United States. . . . Appropriate for a wide variety of academic and popular audiences. While scholars will find usefulness in having the text as an up-to-date reference point, it will provide a substantial contribution to undergraduate and postgraduate courses as well. Widely diverse courses in public land management, environmental planning, environmental policy, environmental politics, environmental history, environmental law, environmental social studies, wilderness, and the environmental humanities will find this text to be valuable. Wilson’s book neatly and creatively packs a great deal of information and analyses into just over 300 pages.

Society & Natural Resources