Overview

In The Blue and the Green, anthropologist Jack Stauder analyzes how large-scale political, social, and environmental processes have transformed ranching and rural life in the West. Focusing on the community of Blue, Arizona, Stauder details how the problems of overgrazing, erosion, and environmental stresses on the open range in the early twentieth century coincided with a push by the newly created US Forest Service to develop fenced grazing allotments on federal lands. Later in the twentieth century, with the enactment of the Endangered Species Act and other laws, the growing power of urban-based environmental groups resulted in the reduction of federal grazing leases throughout the West. The author combines historical research with oral interviews to explore the impact of these transformations on the ranchers residing in the Blue River Valley of eastern Arizona. Stauder gives voice to these ranchers, along with Forest Service personnel, environmental activists, scientists, and others involved with issues on “the Blue,” shedding light on how the ranchers’ rural way of life has changed dramatically over the course of the past century. This is a fascinating case study of the effects of increasing government regulations and the influence of outsiders on ranching communities in the American West.

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9780874179958

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Reviews

The author has mastered the literature, the geography, the ecology, and the history of the Blue. I learned a great deal from the book. --Richard Knight, author of Ranching West of the 100th Meridian

Author Information

Jack Stauder earned his PhD in cultural anthropology at Cambridge University in England and is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA. Stauder has done research in many parts of the world and traveled to more than one hundred countries. He is the author of The Majangir: Ecology and Society of a Southwest Ethiopian People.

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