FDR and the Environment: (The World of the Roosevelts)

This book demonstrates that there is much about the New Deal that can be characterized as environmental, once one substitutes the word 'environmental' for 'conservation'. Indeed, the scholarship that is contained within this extraordinary book will help correct the widely held view that the New Deal is virtually a blank space in the history of modern environmentalism. In fact, the New Deal carried forward and greatly extended the work of the Progressive Conservation Era, and in many ways helped establish the foundation for the modern environmental movement.

Table of Contents:
Foreword; W.Leuchtenburg Introduction; D.B.Woolner & H.L.Henderson FDR as Environmentalist Grassroots Democracy: FDR and the Land; J.F.Sears The Complex Environmentalist; B.Black The Progressive Era Origins of the Civilian Conservation Corps; N.Maher Agriculture and the Human Community - Conservation: Wilderness New Deal Conservation: A View From the Wilderness; P.Sutter FDR, Hoover and the New Rural Conservation, 1920-1932; S.T.Phillips Law, Policy and Planning The New Deal Roots of Modern Environmentalism; A.D.Tarlock FDR's Use of the Antiquities Act; J.Leshy Referendum on Planning: Imagining River Conservation in the 1938 TVA Hearings; B.Black FDR and Environmental Leadership; J.R.Lyons A Usable Past Recovering FDR's Environmental Legacy; R.N.L.Andrews Toward a New Deal for Nature - And Nature's People; R.G.Kennedy

About the Author :
DAVID WOOLNER is Assistant Professor of History and Political Science at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA, and Executive Director of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. HENRY L. HENDERSON is President of Policy Solutions Ltd., an environmental consulting firm based in Chicago, USA, and is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies at the University of Chicago.


Review :
'For those of us who lived through the era of the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the hero of the conservation movement...Never before [this book] has the performance of an administration with respect to the environment been appraised so diligently. This book not only gives us a fresh view of one of the most significant features of the age of Roosevelt, but also informs our understanding of the directions we should pursue in the twenty-first century.' - William Leuchtenberg, from the Foreword 'Do you think that the environmental movement started in the 1960s? Think again. This book demonstrates that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a true environmentalist - and that his deep interest in conservation, and in environmental protection, continues to mark America's identity today. Woolner and Henderson have assembled a wonderful collection of essays that should produce a rethinking of the nation's environmental legacy.' - Cass R. Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School, USA and author of The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Constitutional Vision and Why We Need It More Than Ever 'This enlightening book recovers an important but generally forgotten era in environmental history, the New Deal. There is much of historical interest in the book - beginning with FDR's personal involvement in forestry issues, which will be news to many readers. More significantly, FDR and the Environment has important lessons for today's environmentalists. Rather than considering environmental problems in isolation as we often do today, the New Dealers thought in terms of relationships between humans and the land. Restoring our memory of the New Deal may be a key step toward a more integrated view of environmental and social problems.' - Dan Farber, Director of the Environmental Law Program, University of California at Berkeley, USA and author of EcoPragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World