Ebook: Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Post-World War II Oregon was a place of optimism and growth, a spectacular natural region from ocean to high desert that seemingly provided opportunity in abundance. With the passing of time, however, Oregon's citizens -- rural and urban -- would find themselves entangled in issues that they had little experience in resolving. The same trees that provided income to timber corporations, small mill owners, loggers, and many small towns in Oregon, also provided a dramatic landscape and a home to creatures at risk. The rivers whose harnessing created power for industries that helped sustain Oregon's growth -- and were dumping grounds for municipal and industrial wastes -- also provided passageways to spawning grounds for fish, domestic water sources, and recreational space for everyday Oregonians.The story of Oregon's accommodation to these divergent interests is a divisive story between those interested in economic growth and perceived stability and citizens concerned with exercising good stewardship towards the state's natural resources and preserving the state's livability. In his second volume of Oregon's environmental history, William Robbins addresses efforts by individuals and groups within and outside the state to resolve these conflicts. Among the people who have had roles in this process, journalists and politicians Richard Neuberger and Tom McCall left substantial legacies and demonstrated the ambiguities inherent in the issues they confronted.

William G. Robbins is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of History, Oregon State University. He is the author of "Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940," and "Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850-1986."

"This excellent book and its earlier companion volume define a new and important approach to America's environmental history - from a state rather than a national perspective. It is broadly conceived, well researched, engagingly told and filled with a passion for place that the reader cannot help but share." - Donald Worcester, University of Kansas

""Landscapes of Conflict offers" a comprehensive study of the complex political and environmental policies affecting Northwest water, forest and agricultural policies from 1941 to the present . Robbins' in-depth analyses are sound, his insights keen, his research impeccable." - Craig Lesley, author of "Winterkill" and The "Sky Fisherman"

"This overview of environmental change in Oregon since 1940 is a masterful work...one of the clearest and clear-eyed portraits of a modern state in the West that has been written." - William Lang, Portland State University

""Landscapes of Conflict" is the second volume of what is unquestionably the finest environmental history anyone has yet written for a single state - and since Oregon has helped lead the nation in its response to environmental problems, while also exemplifying those problems within its own boundaries, Robbins's book will be of interest to readers far beyond the Pacific Northwest." - William Cronon, University of Wisconsin