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"Prepared for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Installations, Energy & Environment."
On September 13, 2012, Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco turned fifty. Mixing wilderness, history, and agriculture, Point Reyes is a hybrid park unlike any other in America. An Island in Time traces the triumph of its creation, the rescue effort that saved it from early abandonment, and its frequent identity crises since. Sixty images by regional photographers make it clear why people care. Celebrating what has been accomplished in half a century at Point Reyes, Hart takes a clear-eyed look at the several (and ongoing) arguments about what this remarkable piece of land should ultimately be. The nationally noted debate about the fate of a historic oyster farm within the park takes its place as the latest in a series of struggles to define the terms. In 1962, Harold Gilliam's classic book Island in Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula helped complete the drive to create the National Seashore. In 2012, An Island in Time: 50 Years of Point Reyes National Seashore tells the rest of the story-and illuminates the choices now at hand.
Point Reyes National Seashore has a long history as a working landscape, with dairy and beef ranching, fishing, and oyster farming; yet, since 1962 it has also been managed as a National Seashore. The Paradox of Preservation chronicles how national ideals about what a park “ought to be” have developed over time and what happens when these ideals are implemented by the National Park Service (NPS) in its efforts to preserve places that are also lived-in landscapes. Using the conflict surrounding the closure of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, Laura Alice Watt examines how NPS management policies and processes for land use and protection do not always reflect the needs and values of local residents. Instead, the resulting landscapes produced by the NPS represent a series of compromises between use and protection—and between the area’s historic pastoral character and a newer vision of wilderness. A fascinating and deeply researched book, The Paradox of Preservation will appeal to those studying environmental history, conservation, public lands, and cultural landscape management, and to those looking to learn more about the history of this dynamic California coastal region.
The little-known story of how the U.S. government came to hold nearly one-third of the nation's land primarily for recreation and conservation.
Offers a glimpse of the future of vanishing shorelines in America in the age of climate change, where the wealthy will be able to remain the longest while the poor will be forced to leave. Journalist Andrew Lewis chronicles the struggle of his New Jersey hometown to rebuild their ravaged homes in the face of the same environmental stresses and governmental neglect that are endangering coastal areas throughout the United States. Lewis grew up on the Bayshore, a 40-mile stretch of Delaware Bay beaches, marshland, and fishing hamlets at the southern end of New Jersey, whose working-class community is fighting to retain their place in a country that has left them behind. The Bayshore, like so ma...
In his engaging book Windshield Wilderness, David Louter explores the relationship between automobiles and national parks, and how together they have shaped our ideas of wilderness. National parks, he argues, did not develop as places set aside from the modern world, but rather came to be known and appreciated through technological progress in the form of cars and roads, leaving an enduring legacy of knowing nature through machines. With a lively style and striking illustrations, Louter traces the history of Washington State’s national parks -- Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades -- to illustrate shifting ideas of wilderness as scenic, as roadless, and as ecological reserve. He remi...
The majestic beauty of Mount Rainier, which dominates the Seattle and Tacoma skyscapes, has in many ways defined the Pacific Northwest. At the same time, those two major cities have strongly influenced the development of Rainier as a national park. From the late 1890s, when the Pacific Forest Reserve became Mount Rainier National Park, the evolving relationship between the mountain and its surrounding residents has told a history of the region itself. That story also describes the changing nature of our national park system. From the late nineteenth century to the present, park service representatives and other officials have created policies, built roads and hotels, and regulated public use...
The Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) is not only a stunning piece of land—the first large national park created from all private lands and the first large park adjacent a major metropolitan center—but the fight to save this fragile ecosystem in the 1960s was a key turning point in the environmental movement and helped transform the political landscape of California and the nation. Saving Point Reyes is an environmental policy history that draws on archival materials, oral histories, and new interviews with veteran federal policymakers to understand how legislative bargaining and grassroots politics succeeded in achieving this victory for environmental protection. Gerald Warburg offer...
“Perry has long been one of the more strenuous advocates for confronting the dangers of the nuclear age, and his engaging memoir explains why.” —Foreign Affairs My Journey at the Nuclear Brink is a continuation of former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry's efforts to keep the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe. It tells the story of his coming of age in the nuclear era, his role in trying to shape and contain it, and how his thinking has changed about the threat these weapons pose. In a remarkable career, Perry has dealt firsthand with the changing nuclear threat. Decades of experience and special access to top-secret knowledge of strategic nuclear options have given Perry a uni...