Saving the Planet by Hal K Rothman

Saving the Planet by Hal K Rothman

Since 1900 Americans’ attitudes toward the world they inhabit have changed as greatly as their own way of life. As their pace quickened, as they left the rural world of their pre-industrial ancestors and moved to urban areas, Americans became enamored of the natural world, if only as a myth. In Saving the Planet, Hal Rothman explains why Americans now see in the environment a salvation of themselves and their society, and a respite from the pressures of modern life. Mr. Rothman traces the origins of environmentalism to the diverse reform currents of the 1890s and the conservation movement of the Progressive era. Focusing on the roles of advocacy groups, prominent activists, business, legislation, and the federal bureaucracy, he shows how the idea of conservation management was transformed after World War II into a program for “quality of life.” Driven largely by affluence, this revolution in American attitudes is, Mr. Rothman argues, one of many by-products of the decline in outright faith in technology. His cogent narrative history is punctuated throughout with accounts of crucial episodes in the growth of environmentalism—Hetch-Hetchy, the Echo Park Dam, the oil spill at Santa Barbara, Love Canal, and others.

A concise, balanced, and readable history of the conservation movement for the last hundred-plus years-- Katherine E. Gillen * Kliatt *

Hal K. Rothman is editor of the Environmental History Review and teaches history and public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His book Devil’s Bargains, about tourism in the twentieth-century American West, received the 1999 Western Writers of America Spur Award for contemporary nonfiction. He has also written The Greening of a Nation?, “I’ll Never Fight Fire with My Bare Hands Again,” On Rims and Ridges, and Preserving Different Pasts.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781566633017
ISBN 10	156663301X
Title	Saving the Planet
Author	Hal K Rothman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Ivan R Dee, Inc
Year published	2001-03-13
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable