This Green and Growing Land

November 13, 2017
Armitage, professor of history at the University of Miami–Ohio, traces the long history of environmental activism in the U.S. in this comprehensive and accessible volume, highlighting the ways in which the conservation movement has evolved from the 18th century to the 21st century. Armitage describes the contamination of Philadelphia’s Dock Creek in the mid-18th century, when tanneries and slaughterhouses used the waterway “as their dump.” Benjamin Franklin and others insisted that public health and the quality of the shared environment take precedence over private business interests, a position that helped lay a foundation for government regulation and smarter resource management. In the mid-19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau celebrated the great outdoors as a precious resource that should not be commodified, and Armitage relates how such sentiment was further popularized in the early 20th century by John Muir and legitimized by Congress in 1916 with the creation of the National Park Service. Legislation in subsequent years helped to preserve more land, as did the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in the 1970s. Armitage remains unfazed by climate-change skeptics and relishes the challenge they pose to the environmentally concerned; whether they pay attention to this valuable narrative is another matter. Photos.

January 1, 2018
Armitage (The Nature Study Movement, 2009) highlights the individuals and organizations whose efforts contributed to America's conservation of its natural assets. From grassroots action to government policies, he traces the changing relationship we've had with our land, air, and water since Ben Franklin fought industrial waste in Philadelphia, through our expansion to the Pacific coast, and into the modern era. Our use and abuse of resources reflect ideological shifts, and Armitage puts these into social and political context, from the Industrial Revolution through the recognition of nature's limits and the spurring of scientific research into the effects our species is having on the planet. The modern environmental movement, modeled on anti-Vietnam War protests, achieved major victories in the 1970s, resulting in huge reductions in industrial pollution. Although Armitage sidesteps much of today's charged political debate, he emphasizes the fact that the fight to defend the environment continues. The title, from a song by Phil Ochs, a folk singer associated with 1960s activism, reminds us of the grace and beauty of our land and our duty to protect it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)