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Let the People Judge: Wise Use And The Private Property Rights Movement

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This book collects a mix of different types of articles, including newspaper and magazine commentary, short academic pieces, congressional testimony, advice for activists, and various items written specifically for this volume. As you might expect, some of these have aged better than others over the last 15 years. Others are historical curiosities now.

All the contributors take an environmentalist's perspective on the "wise use movement," a coalition of rural westerners and national companies who believe that environmental regulations cost both jobs and profits. Some contributors are sympathetic to the concerns of rural communities but they remain outsiders. It would have been helpful if the editors had solicited comments from the mix of WUM advocates, including local loggers and ranchers, motorized recreationists, and large resource extraction companies. As it is, the book remains dangerously one-sided, a bunch of environmentalists working themselves up over "those people" and "big corporations."

That said, there's a healthy breadth of issues presented here, including even fisheries. There's a big group of papers on the "takings" question, which remains a live issue. If you've run across this item on Amazon, then you'll probably find it useful. Given its age, you'll probably find yourself dipping in and out of the book rather than reading it straight through. The "current events" pieces are outdated but some histories of the WUM or analyses of specific topics will remain useful.