Customer Reviews

The Book of the Tongass (The World As Home)

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Very good reading. Because it is a collection of essays, you can gets lots from this book: natural history of the region, politics, sociocultural issues. Picking a nit, this gave the book a scattered feel. Also, some chapters far superior to others, I found myself skimming thru a few aimless chapters.

For those who would be more than casual visitors to this spectacular landscape, this collection of writings from various authors offers up pointed insight into man's relationshionship with the Tongass. From the best (and concise!) overview of the legal issue of subsistance in Alaska I've ever read to the quietly fantastical Tlingit story, the book contains the multi-faceted viewpoints of modern inhabitants and the issues shaping how we view this incredible place.

This book is a sad compilation of environmental propaganda. To speak of timber harvests in the "billions" of board feet when the industry is vertially extinct is just wrong. The Tongass region is the home of thousands of hardworking, resource-based individuals who don't want their lives to be misportrayed as this book has done. Alaskans have managed the resources of the state responsibly and the author does an injustice by not honestly explaining this fact.