Presidents and the American Environment - by Otis Graham Hardcover

About the Book

The first narrative history of the critical roles played by the Presidents in the over century long struggle to conserve the nation's natural resources and develop environmental policy.

Book Synopsis

In 1891 Benjamin Harrison, the first president engaged in conservation, had to have this new area of public policy explained to him by members of the Boone and Crockett Club. This didn't take long, as he was only asked to sign a few papers setting aside federal timberland. But from such small moments great social movements grow, and the course of natural resource protection policy through 22 presidents has altered Americans' relationship to the natural world in then almost unimaginable ways. Presidents and the American Environment charts this course. Exploring the ways in which every president from Harrison to Obama has engaged the expanding agenda of the Nature protection impulse, the book offers a clear, close-up view of the shifting and nation shaping mosaic of both "green" and "brown" policy directions over more than a century.

While the history of conservation generally focuses on the work of intellectuals such as Muir, Leopold, and Carson, such efforts could only succeed or fail on a large scale with the involvement of the government, and it is this side of the story that Presidents and the American Environment tells. On the one hand, we find a ready environmental engagement, as in Theodore Roosevelt's establishment of Pelican Island bird refuge upon being informed that the Constitution did not explicitly forbid it. On the other hand, we have leaders like Calvin Coolidge, playing hide-and-seek games in the Oval Office while ignoring reports of coastal industrial pollution. The book moves from early cautious sponsors of the idea of preserving public lands to crusaders like Theodore Roosevelt, from the environmental implications of the New Deal to the politics of pollution in the boom times of the forties and fifties, from the emergence of "environmentalism" to recent presidential detractors of the cause.

From Harrison's act, which established the American system of National Forests, to Barack Obama's efforts on curbing climate change, presidents have mattered as they resisted or used the ever-changing tools and objectives of environmentalism. In fact, with a near even split between "browns" and "greens" over those 22 administrations, the role of president has often been decisive. How, and how much, distinguished historian Otis L. Graham, Jr., describes in in full for the first time, in this important contribution to American environmental history.

Review Quotes

"Fills a void in the historiography of American environmental history. . . . Given today's political turbulence and environmental issues, Graham's work is timely and important."--Environment and Society

"Impressively detailed and important."--Environmental History

"The author successfully highlights the fact that the presidency has been a key factor in the evolution of the nation's environmental policies and that president have applied their powers unevenly on behalf of the natural world."--American Historical Review

"Comparing figures from different times who faced different circumstances, and on only one issue among many, is perilous work for historians. Graham, however, makes his case convincingly. . . . He enlivens the story with interesting anecdotes and quotations and his writing style is easy to read. . . . In sum, this is a welcome addition to the literature."--Western Historical Quarterly

"Graham provides a useful survey of American environmental history vis-á-vis the 22 occupants of the White House"--Forest History Today

"Presidents and the American Environment will make for lively discussions in graduate seminars in US environmental history and US politics and federal policymaking more generally. Kudos to Graham for integrating an overwhelming mass of important material into an unconventional, thought-provoking narrative."--H-Net Reviews

"It is interesting to view the development of these policies from the perspective of 22 presidents, each having his own history of nature-related experiences, which Graham skillfully weaves into the story."--Choice

Graham deftly weaves the contextual and the personal to tell the story of the environment and the presidency--and presidents. Context matters, but does not determine. Biography matters, but doesn't compel. Too bad voters, or candidates, so rarely place environmental management (or management at all) at the top of their lists of necessary presidential attributes. This book will cause readers to think."--Christopher J. Bosso, author of Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway

Otis L. Graham, Jr.'s book is quite valuable in opening the debate over how presidents have led, followed, or obstructed on key conservation and ecological challenges throughout our history."--Martin V. Melosi, author of The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present