Char Miller, "Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy" (Oregon State UP, 2012)

Summary

From illicit marijuana farms wedged deep in the canyons of the Angeles National Forest to the fire-bombed laboratories of the University of Washington, Char Miller takes readers on a wild romp through the contests, debates, and full-out battles that have surrounded American public lands for over a century in Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy (Oregon State University Press, 2012) In a series of nineteen very short vignette essays published by the Oregon State University Press, Miller turns his laser focus on episodes in American land-management policy, some familiar and others formerly lost in institutional obscurity. Each essay brings a fresh perspective to land policy debates, often raising many questions along the way. Taken together as a collection, these vignettes and meditations offer a fascinating series of windows into the long and very contested history of American land-use policy.
Contemporary observers of public lands controversies may harbor nostalgic longings for a past when Americans were in agreement about their lands, but Miller's book makes clear that such a time never existed. Whether Earth Liberation Front firebombers protesting ski resort development, intermountain ranchers opposing grazing restrictions, or Sierra Club rank-and-file opposing another dam, people from across the political spectrum and land-management agency leaders have engaged in passionate battles over the great American commons--public lands. "We need the edge," Miller says in this interview, "both left and right--the center needs to know where the edges are in order to understand itself." Specifically written to appeal to a broad audience, Miller hopes this work will inspire readers to engage in public lands conversations, for such discourse is the heart of democratic decision-making. With themes ranging from the role of science in land-use power struggles to the relationships between multiple public lands agencies, Public Lands, Public Debates will surely inspire and inform many such conversations.

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