Battleground Alaska

No American state is more antistatist than Alaska. And no state takes in more federal money per capita, which accounts for a full third of Alaska's economy. This seeming paradox underlies the story Stephen Haycox tells in Battleground Alaska, a history of the fraught dynamic between development and environmental regulation in a state aptly dubbed "The Last Frontier." Examining inconvenient truths, the book investigates the genesis and persistence of the oft-heard claim that Congress has trampled Alaska's sovereignty with its management of the state's pristine wilderness. At the same time it debunks the myth of an inviolable Alaska statehood compact at the center of this claim. Unique, isolated, and remote, Alaska's economy depends as much on absentee corporate exploitation of its natural resources, particularly oil, as it does on federal spending. This dependency forces Alaskans to endorse any economic development in the state, putting them in conflict with restrictive environmental constraint. Battleground Alaska reveals how Alaskans' abiding resentment of federal regulation and control has exacerbated the tensions and political sparring between these camps—and how Alaska's leaders have exploited this antistatist sentiment to promote their own agendas, specifically the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Haycox builds his history and critique around four now classic environmental battles in modern Alaska: the establishment of the ANWR is the 1950s; the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the 1970s; the passage of the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act in 1980; and the struggle that culminated in the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990. What emerges is a complex tale, with no clear-cut villains and heroes, that explains why Alaskans as a collective almost always opt for development, even as they profess their genuine love for the beauty and bounty of their state's environment. Yet even as it exposes the potential folly of this practice, Haycox's work reminds environmentalists that all wilderness is inhabited, and that human life depends—as it always has—on the exploitation of the earth's resources.

Alaska often looms large as a remote, wild place with endless resources and endlessly independent, resourceful people. Yet it has always been part of larger stories: the movement of Indigenous peoples from Asia into the Americas and their contact with and accommodation to Western culture; the spread of European political economy to the New World; the expansion of American capitalism and culture; and the impacts of climate change. In this updated classic, distinguished historian Stephen Haycox surveys the state’s cultural, political, economic, and environmental past, examining its contemporary landscape and setting the region in a broader, global context. Tracing Alaska’s transformation from the early postcontact period through the modern era, Haycox explores the ever-evolving relationship between Native Alaskans and the settlers and institutions that have dominated the area, highlighting Native agency, advocacy, and resilience. Throughout, he emphasizes the region’s systemic dependence on both federal support and outside corporate investment in natural resources—furs, gold, copper, salmon, oil—and offers a less romantic, more complex history that acknowledges the broader national and international contexts of Alaska’s past.

"Alaska emerged from obscurity in the late 1890s, and the growth of its population and economy occurred during an era of Progressive change when the centers of power were shifting from giant business conglomerates to government-mandated regulation and socio-economic reform. The territory benefitted greatly, but progress arrived piecemeal over the course of decades. The pioneers were eager to see Alaska develop. They wanted systems of transportation, communication, and effective law, and they wanted them now. When Congress was slow to act, Alaskans responded with cries of neglect and abuse, and those complaints festered and persisted. Such feelings were not wrong or misplaced. Alaskans living in the moment had no way of peering into the future. But from today's perspective we can see that over time Alaska as both a territory and a state has been enriched far more than neglected or abused by the United States government. The journalist and the historian view the same events through different colored glasses. Each writer brings a unique point of view, and it is these fresh interpretations that keep history alive and vital."--Provided by publisher.

America is not simply a federation of states but a confederation of regions. Some have always held national attention, some just for a time. Slopovers examines three regions that once dominated the national narrative and may now be returning to prominence. The Mid-American oak woodlands were the scene of vigorous settlement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and thus the scene of changing fire practices. The debate over the origin of the prairies—by climate or fire—foreshadowed the more recent debate about fire in oak and hickory hardwoods. In both cases, today’s thinking points to the critical role of fire. The Pacific Northwest was the great pivot between laissez-faire logging and state-sponsored conservation and the fires that would accompany each. Then fire faded as an environmental issue. But it has returned over the past decade like an avenging angel, forcing the region to again consider the defining dialectic between axe and flame. And Alaska—Alaska is different, as everyone says. It came late to wildland fire protection, then managed an extraordinary transfiguration into the most successful American region to restore something like the historic fire regime. But Alaska is also a petrostate, and climate change may be making it the vanguard of what the Anthropocene will mean for American fire overall. Slopovers collates surveys of these three regions into the national narrative. With a unique mixture of journalism, history, and literary imagination, renowned fire expert Stephen J. Pyne shows how culture and nature, fire from nature and fire from people, interact to shape our world with three case studies in public policy and the challenging questions they pose about the future we will share with fire.

The Arctic has, for some forty years, been among the most innovative policy environments in the world. The region has developed impressive systems for intra-regional cooperation, responded to the challenges of the rapid environmental change, empowered and engaged with Indigenous peoples, and dealt with the multiple challenges of natural resource development. The Palgrave Handbook on Arctic Policy and Politics has drawn on scholars from many countries and academic disciplines to focus on the central theme of Arctic policy innovation. The portrait that emerges from these chapters is of a complex, fluid policy environment, shaped by internal, national and global dynamics and by a wide range of political, legal, economic, and social transitions. The Arctic is a complex place from a political perspective and is on the verge of becoming even more so. Effective, proactive and forward-looking policy innovation will be required if the Far North is to be able to address its challenges and capitalize on its opportunities.

In the years between 1940 and 2000, the American Far West went from being a relative backwater of the United States to a considerably more developed, modern, and prosperous region--one capable of influencing not just the nation but the world. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, the population of the West had multiplied more than four times since 1940, and western states had transitioned from rural to urban, becoming the most urbanized section of the country. Massive investment, both private and public, in the western economy had produced regional prosperity, and the tourism industry had undergone massive expansion, altering the ways Americans identified with the West. In The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000, John M. Findlay presents a historical overview of the American West in its decades of modern development. During the years of U.S. mobilization for World War II and the Cold War, the West remained a significant, distinct region even as its development accelerated rapidly and, in many ways, it became better integrated into the rest of the country. By examining events and trends that occurred in the West, Findlay argues that a distinctive, region-wide political culture developed in the western states from a commitment to direct democracy, the role played by the federal government in owning and managing such a large amount of land, and the way different groups of westerners identified with and defined the region. While illustrating western distinctiveness, Findlay also aims to show how, in its sustaining mobilization for war, the region became tethered to the entire nation more than ever before, but on its own terms. Findlay presents an innovative approach to viewing the American West as a region distinctive of the United States, one that occasionally stood ahead of, at odds with, and even in defiance of the nation.

The environment inflames passions in people on all points of the political spectrum. Controversies over such issues as the rise of cancer in industrialized countries, climate change, and urban sprawl have skyrocketed as we recognize the impact that humans have on the environment. Many people become immersed in these controversies at a local level before they know much about the topic - the nuances of many environmental conflicts are often overlooked as the media focuses on the adversarial nature of the conflict. This reference resource provides students, teachers, librarians, and citizens as a whole with the necessary first step in understanding these hot-button issues. Each entry identifies the issue involved, who was holding various points of view or positions, where and when the conflict occurred, and explains the cultural, social, and political context and dimensions of the conflict. Battleground: Environment provides in-depth analysis of over 100 of the most controversial topics involving the environment, including childhood asthma, the Kyoto Summit and Treaty, smart growth, the Three Gorges Dam in China, and genetically modified food. Entries include descriptions of public policies and discussions of the future of the controversy. Each entry concludes with cross references and a short, relevant bibliography suitable for student research. The resource includes numerous sidebars that discuss in detail particular local controversies that illuminate the complexity of the topics discussed.