Federal Land Western Anger

Cawley objectively investigates the Sagebrush Rebellion, looking at the driving force behind the movement, the strategies used by the Rebels, and the consequences of the controversy. He also offers a provocative interpretation of events in federal land policy from the 1960s to the 1990s and establishes a framework for assessing future developments in federal land policy. Includes an analysis of James Watt's beleaguered tenure as Reagan's Secretary of the Interior.

Environmentalists and the timber industry do not often collaborate, but in the years immediately following gray wolf reintroduction in the interior American West, a plan to reintroduce grizzly bears to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana brought these odd bedfellows together. The partnership won praise from diverse interests across the country and in 2000 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a plan for reintroduction. When the Bush Administration took office, however, it promptly shelved the project. In Grizzly West Michael J. Dax explores the political, cultural, and social forces at work in the West and around the country that gave rise to this innovative plan but also contributed to its downfall. Observers at the time blamed the project’s collapse on simple partisan politics, but Dax reveals how the American West’s changing culture and economy over the second half of the twentieth century dramatically affected this bold vision. He examines the growth of the New West’s political potency, while at the same time revealing the ways in which the Old West still holds a significant grip over the region’s politics. Grizzly West explores the great divide between the Old and the New West, one that has lasting consequences for the modern West and for our country's relationship with its wildlife.

It is the largest landholder in America, overseeing nearly an eighth of the country: 258 million acres located almost exclusively west of the Mississippi River, with even twice as much below the surface. Its domain embraces wildlife and wilderness, timber, range, and minerals, and for over 60 years, the Bureau of Land Management has been an agency in search of a mission. This is the first comprehensive, analytical history of the BLM and its struggle to find direction. James Skillen traces the bureau's course over three periods—its formation in 1946 and early focus on livestock and mines, its 1970s role as mediator between commerce and conservation, and its experience of political gridlock since 1981 when it faced a powerful antienvironmental backlash. Focusing on events that have shaped the BLM's overall mission, organization, and culture, he takes up issues ranging from the National Environmental Policy Act to the Sagebrush Rebellion in order to paint a broad picture of the agency's changing role in the American West. Focusing on the vast array of lands and resources that the BLM manages, he explores the complex and at times contradictory ways that Americans have valued nature. Skillen shows that, although there have been fleeting moments of consensus over the purpose of national forests and parks, there has never been any such consensus over the federal purpose of the public lands overseen by the BLM. Highlighting the perennial ambiguities shadowing the BLM's domain and mission, Skillen exposes the confusion sown by conflicting congressional statutes, conflicting political agendas, and the perennial absence of public support. He also shows that, while there is room for improvement in federal land management, the criteria by which that improvement is measured change significantly over time. In the face of such ambiguity—political, social, and economic--Skillen argues that the agency's history of limited political power and uncertain mission has, ironically, better prepared it to cope with the more chaotic climate of federal land management in the twenty-first century. Indeed, operating in an increasingly crowded physical and political landscape, it seems clear that the BLM's mission will continue to be marked by ambiguity. For historians, students, public administrators, or anyone who cares about American lands, Skillen offers a cautionary tale for those still searching for a final solution to federal land and resource conflicts.

Examines the conflict surrounding public land management, revealing how problematic language in public land laws, scarcity of resources, and mistrust cloud the debates, and offering a range of solutions to help move beyond the dysfunctional status quo management.

Throughout the history of the United States, the concepts of “land” and “the West” have fired the American imagination and fueled controversy. The essays in Land in the American West deal with complex, troublesome, and interrelated questions regarding land: Who owns it? Who has access to it? What happens when private rights infringe upon the public good, or when one ethnic group is pitted against another, or when there is a conflict between economic and environmental values? Many of these questions have deep historical roots. They all have special significance in the modern American West, where natural resources are still abundant and large areas of land are federally owned.

Battle for the Big Sky delves into one of the few competitive races of the 2012 election: the US Senate campaign in Montana. Author David C.W. Parker was granted exceptional access by both candidates over the 21 months preceding the election, allowing him to tell the story of the race in rare and fascinating detail, while also exploring the impact of Citizens United and so-called "dark money" on the campaign. The Montana setting offers readers a view into the rising political influence of the West, the importance of "place" in politics, and the impact of congressional styles and constituent relationships on campaigns and elections. Parker skillfully weaves political analysis into his narrative and places the race in the broader context of congressional elections and the research literature.

From Denali's majestic slopes to the Great Swamp of central New Jersey, protected wilderness areas make up nearly twenty percent of the parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and other public lands that cover a full fourth of the nation's territory. But wilderness is not only a place. It is also one of the most powerful and troublesome ideas in American environmental thought, representing everything from sublime beauty and patriotic inspiration to a countercultural ideal and an overextension of government authority. The Promise of Wilderness examines how the idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Wilderness preservation has engaged diverse groups of citizens, from hunters and ranchers to wildlife enthusiasts and hikers, as political advocates who have leveraged the resources of local and national groups toward a common goal. Turner demonstrates how these efforts have contributed to major shifts in modern American environmental politics, which have emerged not just in reaction to a new generation of environmental concerns, such as environmental justice and climate change, but also in response to changed debates over old conservation issues, such as public lands management. He also shows how battles over wilderness protection have influenced American politics more broadly, fueling disputes over the proper role of government, individual rights, and the interests of rural communities; giving rise to radical environmentalism; and playing an important role in the resurgence of the conservative movement, especially in the American West. Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsq-6LAeYKk

Among American conservatives, the right to own property free from the meddling hand of the state is one of the most sacred rights of all. But in the American West, the federal government owns and oversees vast patches of land, complicating the narrative of western individualism and private property rights. As a consequence, anti-federal government sentiment has animated conservative politics in the West for decades upon decades. In This Land Is My Land, James R. Skillen tells the story of conservative rebellion-ranging from legal action to armed confrontations-against federal land management in the American West over the last forty years. He traces the successive waves of conservative insurgency against federal land authority-the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979-1982), the War for the West (1991-2000), and the Patriot Rebellion (2009-2016)-and shows how they evolved from regional revolts waged by westerners with material interests in federal lands to a national rebellion against the federal administrative state. Cumulatively, Skillen explains how ranchers, miners, and other traditional users of federal lands became powerful symbols of conservative America and inseparably linked to issues of property rights, gun rights, and religious expression. Not just a book about property rights battles over Western lands, This Land is My Land reveals how the evolving land-based conflicts in the West since the 1980s reshaped the conservative coalition in America-a development that ultimately helped lead to the election of President Donald J. Trump in 2016.