Federal Planning and Historic Places: The Section 106 Process (Heritage Resource Management Series) [Paperback]

Thomas F. King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0742502597 | ISBN-13: 978-0742502598

Section 106. A critical section of an obscure law, the National Preservation Act. It has saved thousands of historic sites, archeological sites, buildings, and neighborhoods across the country from destruction by Federal projects. And it has let even more be destroyed, or damaged, or somehow changed. It is the major legal basis for a multi-million dollar 'cultural resource management' industry that provides employment to thousands of archeologists, historians, and architectural historians. It is interpreted in a wide variety of ways by judges, lawyers, Federal agency officials, State and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, contractors, and academics. But what does it say, and how does the regulatory process it created actually work? In this book, Tom King de-mythologizes Section 106, explaining its origins, its rationale, and the procedures that must be followed in carrying out its terms. Available just months after the latest revision of section 106, this book builds on King's best-selling work, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice: an Introductory Guide (AltaMira Press 1998). It is indispensable for federal, state, tribal, legal, academic, and citizen practitioners in the United States. King's engaging and witty prose turns a tangle of complicated regulation into a readable and engaging guide. ** CLICK 'Sample Readings' below to view the most current addendum to this book. Sponsored by the Heritage Resources Management Program, University of Nevada, Reno

Editorial Reviews

Review

Unique and valuable... the book for all who deal with Section 106 regulations to read and reread. (Thomas E. Emerson Illinois Archaeology )

Thomas F. King, a long-standing leader in the ever-growing and transforming field of Cultural Resource Management (CRM), has done a great service to the historic preservation community by writing this book.... Any archaeologist who works in CRM or who is responsible for teaching students about the realities of practicing archaeology in the U.S. today should own this book. AltaMira Press should be congratulated for publishing books like this one in its Heritage Resource Management Series and filling a publication void. (Michael D. Petraglia American Antiquity )

[King's] analogy between chronic disease and regulatory procedures is funny as well as sharp-edged .... The goal of AltaMira's Heritage series includes producing 'practical guides designed to help those who work in cultural resource management, environmental management, heritage preservation, and related subjects.' This goal has been met by King's contribution. (Susan R. Martin Ia: The Journal Of The Society For Industrial Archaeology )

If Historical Preservation Departments across the country realize the importance of King's work, it maybe come the essential supplement to those who would assure employment to thousands of archaeologists, historians, and preservationists. And, if this happens, it may turn the tide in preserving what is important to many Americans. This is a valuable work. (J. Christopher Schnell Journal Of The West, Fall 2002, Vol 41.4 )

I would recommend King's book to students in academic programs that serve to train the next generation of historic preservation professionals.... Those of us who are professionally involved with historic preservation planning in the United States (and her trust territories that are also subject to the process) will find many, many sections of King's book to be enlightening, provocative, and interesting--and funny to boot! .... King's book, as I have said,is wonderfully insightful. (Edward L. Bell Northeast Historical Archaeology, Vol 29, 2000 )

[King's] analogy between chronic disease and regulatory procedures is funny as well as sharp-edged .... The goal of AltaMira's Heritage series includes producing 'practical guides designed to help those who work in cultural resource management, environmental management, heritage preservation, and related subjects.' This goal has been met by King's contribution.... (Susan R. Martin Ia: The Journal Of The Society For Industrial Archaeology )

[Tom King] very nearly manages to bring what can be a complicated and arcane process into lay terms. Laced with humor, thought-provoking (and sometimes controversial) prose, and simplified examples, Federal Planning and Historic Places should assist anyone who wishes to learn about the 106 process. (Bill Callahan Nebraska History )

What makes this book especially valuable is the author. Thomas F. King has been involved in the Section 106 process since its inception, has taught section 106 classes for years, and has probably thought more about the regulation's evolution than any other person alive. (Darby C. Strapp High Plains Applied Anthropologist )

About the Author

Thomas F. King has worked in historic preservation since the mid-1960's,as an academic, a contractor and a government official. During 1977-79 he organized historic preservation programs in the islands of Micronesia, and from 1979-88 he oversaw Section 106 review for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology (emphasis archaeology) from the University of California, Riverside.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press (February 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742502597
• ISBN-13: 978-0742502598
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,173 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I got interested in archaeology at a tender age, and was a teen-aged pothunter by age 15.
But in about 1966, as an undergraduate at San Francisco State University (then College) surviving on the GI Bill and work in 'salvage archaeology,' I fell in with a remarkable fellow student named Eric Barnes, who mixed art and urban planning with anthropology in his creative brain, and he introduced me to a law just signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson ' the National Historic Preservation Act. Eric felt that it might be used to preserve and manage archaeological sites, rather than simply to get them dug up before they were destroyed. He convinced me, and my career lurched away from mainstream academic archaeology into what we now call 'cultural resource management' or CRM.

Over the next ten years I oversaw the UCLA Archaeological Survey, helped set up the Archaeological Research Unit at the University of California, Riverside and completed a PhD there in Anthropology, did fieldwork in California's North Coast Range, Sierra Nevada, and Mojave and Colorado Deserts, and along the Pacific coast from Los Angeles north to the Oregon border. I set up a private consulting firm in northern California, took part in litigation, helped organize the Society for California Archaeology, and helped coordinate a legislative effort that would have established a state archaeological survey, modeled on one in Arkansas, had the legislation to create it not fallen to a veto by Governor Ronald Reagan. Becoming unemployable in California, I was enabled by the late, great New York State archaeologist Marian White to shuffle across the continent to Buffalo to set up a contract archaeology program for the New York Archaeological Council. I lasted a bit over a year on the Niagara Frontier before being recruited by the National Park Service to help write regulations and guidelines for the newly enacted Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act. I was a bit over a year in Washington DC before being 'detailed' to Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands to help the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands with its historic preservation programs. A tough job, but somebody had to do it.

Returning to the mainland in 1977, having established a pattern of employment suggesting that I'd never work anyplace for more than two years at a time, I was honored to be asked by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to head the office that nagged Federal agencies nationwide about compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. This took me back to Washington, where I actually worked for ten years with the Council, through the Reagan administration and the beginning of Bush I. Policy disputes then led me to quit in a huff and go back into private practice, where I remain to this day. At various times in the last sixteen years or so I've worked intensively for agencies like the General Services Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Farm Service Agency in the Department of Agriculture, and consulted a good deal with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian groups, besides authoring several textbooks and a number journal articles on CRM topics. I've taught short classes for the University of Nevada, Reno and the National Preservation Institute, and now both teach and consult with SWCA Environmental Consultants (www.swca.com). And I've returned to archaeology as the volunteer Senior Archaeologist on The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery's Amelia Earhart Search Project ' read all about it at www.tighar.org or in Amelia Earhart's Shoes (AltaMira Press 2004). Most recently I've tried my hand at a novel -- "Thirteen Bones," Dog Ear Press 2010-- built around the 1940 discovery of what were probably Earhart's bones on Nikumaroro in the Phoenix Islands.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The benefits of King's insider information, June 8, 2000

By 

Robert Sanford (Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Federal Planning and Historic Places: The Section 106 Process (Heritage Resource Management Series) (Hardcover)

King's new book on the Section 106 process is a slim but lively and provocative compilation based on his various workshops and training sessions on the evaluation of historic places for listing on the Natinal Register. King's vast years of experience and easy-flowing writing style make this a useful and enjoyable book for those who want to learn about the specifics of the 106 process. Contains details on subtle nuances and meanings of historic property evaluation and use of the process. This book is a must have for students of cultural resources, consulting archaeologists and others in the historic preservation fields.