The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism

Righter, Robert W.

ISBN 10: 0195149475 / ISBN 13: 9780195149470

Edité par Oxford University Press, New York, 2005

A propos de cet article

In Pristine Condition, No Marks Or Inscriptions. Grey Hard Covers With Bright Gilt Title On The Spine. The Dj Is Complete, Not Clipped And Shows The Art Work Of Albert Bierstadt ' The Hetch-Hetchy Valley California". No Apparent Shelf Or Reading Wear.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism
• Éditeur: Oxford University Press, New York
• Date de parution: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0195149475
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780195149470
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• Impression: 3rd Printing
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: Near Fine

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

At the beginning of the 19th centurry, an unknown granite valley in California's Sierra Nevada mountain brought a controversy over the use of land and nature to the floor of Congress and thrust preservationist concerns into national consciousness. The city of San Francisco pressed for the damming of the Tuolumne River in newly created Yosemite National Park in order to create a pure and reliable urban water supply. Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the US Forest Service, supported the reservoir, articulating the position that nature should be used, managed and controlled by man, a position of utilitarian conservation Theodore Roosevelt supported. But for the first time in American history, a significant national opposition arose to defend and preserve nature, led by John Muir and the Sierra Club. Three years after congressional approval of the dam, Woodrow Wilson signed the National Parks Act to prevent future damming projects in nationally protected land; no dam has been approved since.In 1933, the city completedthe O'Shaugnessy Dam, but in the wake of the controversy there arose an active environmental movement, which developed interest group techniques and strategies that would effectively turn regional issues into national battles. The dam became a symbol of unquestioned growth, misplaced faith in technology and engineering, and a disrespect for nature and national parks. In the first popular book on Hetch Hetchy to be published since 1965, Bob Righter provides a short accessible narrative of the Hetch Hetchy controversy and its continuing impact on American history, including the contemporary debates ver resource management in California and proposals to tear down existing dams worldwide.

Revue de presse

"The Battle over Hetch Hetchy is something beyond merely the best book anyone has ever written on confluence of canyon, dam, and city that so shaped the story of the modern American West. It is both a well-argued history and a beautifully-written testimony of hubris and loss, even possible redemption. If our places and times really do shape us, Californian Bob Righter was born to write this book. He now joins Pinchot, Muir, Brower as part of its story."--Dan Flores, author of The Natural West

"The fight over Hetch Hetchy was a defining moment in the clash between two defining traits of the American West--its abundance of natural beauty and its scarcity of water. Righter's radical retelling of the story requires us to rethink the modern conservation movement from its birth until today."--Elliott West, University of Arkansas

"This book is a masterful study of the major symbolic controversy of American environmental history, the clash between resource exploitation and preservation of wild nature. In his gracefully written, skillfully researched work, Robert Righter, one of our leading environmental historians, untangles the surprisingly complicated and contradictory debate over Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy, which has continued into the 21st century and remains as relevant today as it was a century ago when John Muir tried and failed to stop the city of San Francison from damming the pristine Sierra valley for public water and electrical power. In the current climate, when the nation and world face the same vital larger issues, and when forces are mounting to tear out what may have been an unnecessary human defilement of nature, this wise and sensitive book could not have come at a better time."--Richard J. Orsi, California State University, Hayward

"Tragedy, the philosopher Hegel tells us, can come from the clash of competing goods. In this thoroughly researched, elegantly written, and even-handed history, Robert Righter chronicles how alternative views of Americas future - urbanism versus the preservation of the environment -- collided at Hetch Hetchy Valley. The founding of cities inevitably involves a sacrifice of environment. In losing the Hetch Hetchy Valley, America more than paid its price to bring into being metropolitan San Francisco."--Kevin Starr, author of the Americans and the California Dream series

"Righter tells for the first time ever the full story of this famous wild valley in California and the battle that once raged, and is still raging today, over its fate. This is exemplary environmental history-well-researched, balanced and fair-minded, yet told with passion for the natural world."--Donald Worster, author of A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell