America's Public Lands
eBook - ePub

America's Public Lands

From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

America's Public Lands

From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access America's Public Lands by Randall K. Wilson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. List of Figures
  2. Preface to the Second Edition
  3. Introduction: Why Public Lands?
  4. Part I: ORIGINS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
  5. Part II: AMERICA’S PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM
  6. Appendix A: Major U.S. Public Land Laws and Other Key Turning Points
  7. Appendix B: Units within the National Park System
  8. Notes
  9. Bibliography
  10. About the Author