The next West : public lands, community, and economy in the American West

Book

The next West : public lands, community, and economy in the American West / edited by John A. Baden and Donald Snow.

Baden, John. (Added Author). Snow, Donald. (Added Author). Gallatin Institute. (Added Author).

Summary:

In The Next West, nearly a dozen leading thinkers and writers offer an insightful vision of the future of the American West. Their essays comprise a cogent matrix of reflections on what has gone wrong in the region, and, as Donald Snow explains in his lively introduction, point the way to a Next West based on "the renewal of Jeffersonian democracy, experiments in local and supra-local control of public lands, and the use of markets to replace the political allocation of natural resources."

The first half of the book presents an enlightening view of what it is to live in the West and practice environmental awareness. From the Sangre de Cristo Range, to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, to a single valley in Wyoming, the contributors describe their experiences with environmental endeavors ranging from the birth of the recycling industry on the streets of Seattle to the leasing of federal coal. In the second half of the book, contributors address the mythologies that have set the tone for life in the West for more than a century, challenging "the demons that command center stage in the politics and economy of the region." They dissect and debunk much of the West's gospel: that environmentally damaging extractive industries are essential for economic survival; that conservation is best handled by the government; that some day soon a great leader will arrive to once and for all solve their most pressing problems.

Record details

ISBN: 1559634596
ISBN: 9781559634595
ISBN: 155963460X
ISBN: 9781559634601
Physical Description: xii, 272 pages ; 24 cm
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Island Press, ©1997.

Content descriptions

General Note:: "Gallatin Institute."
Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Struck with consequence / Stephen Bodio -- New forestry in the next West / Rocky Barker -- The bizarre and unsettling saga of Whitney Benefits: a federal parable / Samuel Western -- Closing the loop / Jim McMahon -- Blood and cotton / Tom Wolf -- The True-Mann's West: endangered and forsaken? / John A. Baden -- Saving the marketplace from the market: one view of the new resource economics / Mark Sagoff -- John Wesley Powell and the unmaking of the West / Karl Hess, Jr. -- Empire or homelands? A revival of Jeffersonian democracy in the American West / Donald Snow -- Is 'libertarian environmentalist' an oxymoron? The crisis of progressive faith and the environmental and libertarian search for a new guiding vision / Robert H. Nelson -- Ideology, wishful thinking, and pragmatic reform: a constructive critique of free-market environmentalism / Thomas Michael Power.