ISBN: 0300133863 9780300133868

Category: Business & Economics / Development / Sustainable Development

Page count: 592

“This book is the fascinating record of DeVoto’s crusade to save the West from itself. . . . His arguments, insights, and passion are as relevant and urgent today as they were when he first put them on paper.”—Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., from the Foreword<br> <br>Bernard DeVoto (1897-1955) was, according to the novelist Wallace Stegner, “a fighter for public causes, for conservation of our natural resources, for freedom of the press and freedom of thought.” A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, DeVoto is best remembered for his trilogy, <i>The Year of Decision: 1846, Across the Wide Missouri, </i>and<i> The Course of Empire.</i> He also wrote a column for Harper’s Magazine, in which he fulminated about his many concerns, particularly the exploitation and destruction of the American West.<br> <br>This volume brings together ten of DeVoto’s acerbic and still timely essays on Western conservation issues, along with his unfinished conservationist manifesto<i>, Western Paradox</i>, which has never before been published. The book also includes a foreword by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who was a student of DeVoto’s at Harvard University, and a substantial introduction by Douglas Brinkley and Patricia Limerick, both of which shed light on DeVoto’s work and legacy.