FHSReco"mmendedReading

Prices quoted are for clothbound copies unlessotherwise noted. You may order these books throughyour local bookstore.

Stephen J. Pyne recently published World Fire: The Cul-ture of Fire on Earth (Henry Holt and Company, 1995,$30.00), a study of how human interaction with fire hasevolved on this planet. Pyne contends that human control

over fire has most radicallyshaped and continues to shapethe landscape, and he points outthat contemporary obsessive firecontrol policies represent the dis-tortion of a natural, and regen-erative, process.

Another recent book dealingwith the history of fire is MichaelThoele's Fire Line: The Summer

Battles of the West(Fulcrum Pub-lishing, 1995, $34.95). Thoeletakes a human interest slant in

this study, focusing on the culture of seasonal fire fightingthat has developed around the work of generations of west-ern forest fire fighters. The coffee-table book featuresbeautiful color photographs of this dangerous occupation.

In ForestGiants of the World, Pastand Present(Fitz-henry and Whiteside, 1995, $75.00), author Al Carderdescribes past and present giants of over one hundred fortytree species according to varying standards for greatness:height, ultimate form, bole, spread of canopy, and age.With its photographs and extensive footnotes, this workwill appeal both to general readers and specialists.

In Wild Things:Nature, Culture, and Tourism in Ontario,1790-1914 (University of Toronto Press, 1995, cloth $45.00,paper $18.95), author Patricia Jasen writes how the regionnow known as Ontario held special appeal for nineteenth-century European tourists seeking to indulge a passion forwild country or to act out their fantasies of primitive life.

LesJoslin, UncleSam's Cabins:A Visitor's Guide to His-

toric U.S.ForestServiceRangerStationsof the West (Wil-derness Associates, 1995, paper $15.95), outlines historicaland access information for seventy-five western rangerstations open for public viewing.

Ken Drushka, HR: A Biographyof H. R. MacMillan(Harbour Publishing, 1995,$35.00),worked closelywithMacMillan's family and business associates to completethis portrait of one of Canada's most important corporateleaders.

48 FOREST HISTORY TODAY

Environmental professionals from fourteen countriescontributed the roughly five hundred entries for RobertPaehlke, ed., Conservationand Environmentalism: AnEncyclopedia(Garland Publishing, 1995,$95.00), focusingon providing multidisciplinary information regardingtwelve entry classifications, including concepts, issues,and methods; organizations; individuals; pollutants;special habitats; and law.

KennethA.Erickson'sguidebook,LumberGhosts:A TravelGuideto theHistoricLumberTownsof thePacificNorthwest(PruettPublishingCompany,1994,paper$16.95), lists six detailed auto tours that pass throughmore than seventy-fivehistoric lumber towns in variousstates of existence: decay, revitalization, extinction, orequilibrium.

W. T. Block,EastTexasMillTownsandGhostTowns,Volume1 (Angelina,Chambers,Jefferson,Nacogdoches,Newton,Orange,Polk,andTylerCounties)(Bestof EastTexas Publishers, 1994,$35.00), offers an anthology ofhundreds of sawmill towns and ghost towns that resultedfrom the East Texas timber boom between the 1880sandthe 1920s.

R. McGreggor Cawley,FederalLand, WesternAnger:The SagebrushRebellion & Environmental Politics (Univer-sity Press of Kansas, $29.95), describes the rebellion ofwesterners in the 1980s against increased control of publiclands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Nevada Barr continues her Anna Pigeon mysteriesserieswith a third book, III Wind (G. P. Putnam's Sons,1995,$19.95). In this volume, Pigeon is a Mesa Verdepark ranger who attempts to unravel the circumstancessurrounding an unusually high number of medical rescuesand the unexplained deaths of an asthmatic child and afellow park ranger.

Authors Derrick Jensen and George Draffan, Railroadsand Clearcuts:Legacyof Congress's1864NorthernPacificRailroadLandGrant(InlandEmpire Public Lands Council,1995,paper $15.00), contendthat policymakers will be unableto find adequate solutions forPacificNorthwest forests and

communities until they recog-nize and correct the problemsderiving from the 1864and 1870land grant contracts.

Jeffrey K. Stine, Mixing the Waters: Environment, Poli-tics,and the Building of the Tennessee- Tombigbee Waterway(University of Akron Press, 1993, paper $39.95), writesabout the controversy surrounding the U.S. Army Corpsof Engineers' largest and most costly public works projectundertaken during the last twenty-five years.

RichardH. Grove, Green Imperialism:ColonialExpan-sion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmen-talism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 1995,$64.95), studies the early and global evolution of environ-mentalism, concentrating on its colonial aspects in distantand exotic places.

Editors Daniel R. Katz and Miles Chapin take a look

at the Western world's ongoing fascination and obsessionwiththe tropics in Talesfrom theJungle:A Rainforest

Reader(Crown Publishers,1995, paper $15.00), a col-lection of fiction and non-

fiction stories by renownednineteenth- and twentieth-

century writers.

In Richard 1. Knight andSarah F. Bates,A New Cen-

tury for Natural ResourcesManagement (Island Press,1995, cloth $47.50, paper$27.00), the editors providehistorical background forthe current goals, policies,

and practices that are transforming all aspects of naturalresources management.

Our1995FHSCharlesA. WeyerhaeuserAward forbestbookgoesto Gordon G. Whitney, From CoastalWildernessto Fruited Plain: A History of EnvironmentalChangein TemperateNorthAmericaFrom1500to thePresent(CambridgeUniversityPress,1994,$54.95).Whitney provides an encyclopedic account of the makingof a large part of the American landscape following Euro-pean settlement. He uses land survey records and travel-ers' accounts to reconstruct the "virgin" forests and grass-lands of the northeastern and central United States during

the presettlement period. Whitney then documents suc-cessivelythe clearance and fragmentation of the region'swoodlands, the harvest of the forest and its game, the

plowing of prairies, and the draining of wetlands.

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In Frank Benjamin Golley,A History of theEcosystemConceptin Ecology:More Than the Sum of the Parts (YaleUniversity Press, 1993, $32.50), the author explains theecosystem concept, describes how numerous Americanand European researchers contributed to its evolution,and discusses the explosive growth of ecosystem studies.

Author Herman Lunden Miller, Lumbering in EarlyTwentieth Century Michigan, the Kneeland-BigelowCom-pany Experience(Walnut Hill Press, 1995,paper $21.95),explains the frustration of this lumber company's plansfor sustained yield of pine timber.

Multiple biographies ofa famous person can lend com-plex layers of interpretation toan individual history. MillieStanley's TheHeartofJohnMuir's World:Wisconsin,Family,andWildernessDiscovery(Prairie Oak Press, 1995,paper$16.95) places Muir in a contextin which he is rarely seen-thatof a loyal and devoted friendand family member-while focusing on the Wisconsininfluences that shaped Muir's character.

David Dobbs and RichardOber spent over two yearsinterviewing nearly fifty local residents for their work TheNorthernForest(ChelseaGreenPublishingCompany,1995,$23.00). The authors report that the current environ-mental movement's emphasis on centralized solutions,mass media campaigns, and preservation rather than wiseuse is alienating the people who live in the areas the move-ment is struggling to protect.

Other books discussing the environmental movementincludeRonaldBailey,ed.,TheTrueStateof thePlanet(The Free Press, 1995,paper $12.00), and Robert Gottlieb,ForcingtheSpring:TheTransformationof theAmericanEnvironmentalMovement(IslandPress,1994,cloth$30.00,paper$17.95).In TheTrueStateof thePlanet,ten scholarsrevisit contentious issues, including population growth,food, forests, global warming, and pesticides. They aim toredirect environmentalists' concerns to more urgent prob-lems concerning fisheries, fresh water, and third world pol-lution-and the political forces that shape these problems.In ForcingtheSpring,Gottliebchallengesstandardhistoriesof the movement by broadening the interpretation of pastenvironmental activities to include discussion of socialmovements of the last one hundred years that arose inresponse to urban and industrial forces....

FOR EST HIS TOR Y TO DAY 49