Overview

Nearly onequarter of America is covered with forests—almost 800 million acres. There are 151 national forests, comprising close to 200 million acres in thirtynine states and Puerto Rico. These protected lands are administered by the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the Department of Agriculture. David Clary here examines the history of and controversies surrounding the Forest Service’s policies for timber management in our national forests. In this first indepth study of the political, bureaucratic, social, and ideological relationships between the Forest Service and the production of timber, Clary traces the continuity in the agency’s outlook from its creation in 1905 through fears of a “timber famine” to the “clearcutting” controversies of the mid 1970s. He shows convincingly that, despite legislative remedies and agency reports, timber production has remained the agency's first priority and that other (multiple uses—recreation, watershed protection, wilderness, livestock grazing, and wildlife management—were regulated so that they would not interfere with potential timber harvests. Throughout its history, the agency is shown to have been enchanted with the objective of producing timber. Clary’s theme, in what he describes as an “administrative, political, scientific, and anecdotal history,” is that the Forest Service exhibited consistent actions and attitudes over the years and failed to confront realistically changes in the national culture that altered what the American people wanted from the forests and the Forest Service.

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9780700603893

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Reviews

"""A fascinating study of animating ideas and the collective behavior of a single agency. . . . Clary's insights and analysis owe much much to his former position as chief historian of the U.S. Forest Service. His impeccable research is based on volumes of primary materials from agency files, National Archives, and private sources. His views of his former employer are incisive, even critical, but tempered with compassion for the individual foresters.""--Western Historical Quarterly ""A superb book that deserves to be read by everyone interested in national forest history.""--Journal of Forest History ""Clary has performed prodigious labors of archival research.""--Journal of American History ""Anyone working either with or against this government agency should read this provocative study.""--Montana The Magazine of Western History ""Clary's important book provides historical perspective for all concerned with regulation of forest use, and urges the public to stay involved.""--Library Journal ""A necessary book for those who claim a serious interest in the national forests.""--Journal of Forestry ""An important contribution to the history of American forestry.""--Pacific Northwest Quarterly A hard-hitting and provocative critique of Forest Service timber management policy. This sprightly work captures well the relationship between forestry technology, political reality, and economic constraints.""--Harold K. Steen, Executive Director, Forest History Society ""An outstanding contribution both to the history of forestry and to the understanding of the secular behavior of a public agency. It is a very important book for serious students of environmental quality, focusing as it does on one of the major issues of public land management.--Richard W. Behan, author of Wilderness: the Edge of Knowledge ""A major addition to the historical literature on conservation. It places the Forest Service securely in the context of evolving forest science and shows the evolution of the agency to have been a product of internal debates reflecting this evolution, on the one hand, and of continuing allegiance to old doctrines and outmoded assumptions, on the other. It goes beyond the level of national leaders to demonstrate the contributions and vitality that marked the Forest Service at the regional and local levels. In so doing, it provides a rare picture of how a federal agency as a whole actually worked. It is thus a significant contribution to administrative as well as environmental history.""--Thomas R. Cox, author of Mills and Markets and This Well-Wooded Land: Americans and Their Forests from Colonial Times to the Present"

Author Information

"David A. Clary, former chief historian of the US Forest Service, is the author or coauthor of several books on American history, including ""The Place Where Hell Bubbled Up"" A History of the First National Park and Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution."

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