A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics) [Paperback]

Mark W. T. Harvey (Author), William Cronon (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics | Publication Date: March 2000

Harvey details the first major clash between conservationists and developers after World War II, the successful fight to prevent the building of Echo Park Dam. The dam on the Green River was intended to create a recreational lake in northwest Colorado and generate hydroelectric power, but would have flooded picturesque Echo Park Valley and threatened Dinosaur National Monument, straddling the Utah-Colorado border near Wyoming. Mark W. T. Harvey is associate professor of history at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Echo Park controversy marks the beginning of the modern wilderness movement. Understanding it is essential for knowing the importance of wilderness in American culture." --Roderick Nash, author of Wilderness and the American Mind "A Symbol of Wilderness is a superb introduction to what has made the wilderness movement a significant force in 20th century environmentalism. This is a natural for classroom use." --William L. Lang, Portland State University "With the recent proliferation of dam-removal campaigns and rising concern over the ecological impacts of artificial reservoirs, this is a must-read for anyone--scholar, student, or general reader--seeking to comprehend the complex relationship between large-scale dams and the environmental movement."--Donald C. Jackson, author of Building the Ultimate Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water in the West "By every standard of narrative and historical scholarship, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of protected parks and wilderness." --Alfred Runte, author of National Parks: The American Experience

About the Author

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1206 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295979321
• ISBN-13: 978-0295979328
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A milestone for the wilderness movement, April 1, 2005

By 

George Alderson (Catonsville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics) (Paperback)

Thankfully, the days are long gone when anyone could seriously propose to build huge dams in a national park or a wilderness area, but as recently as 40 years ago this actually happened -- twice! In this book Professor Mark Harvey tells the story of the US Bureau of Reclamation's proposal in 1949 to build Echo Park Dam in the magnificent canyons of Dinosaur National Monument (Utah), and how concerned citizens got organized and persuaded the US Congress to say No. (There was a repeat ten years later with proposed dams in the Grand Canyon.)

Professor Harvey analyzes the diverse political forces that clashed in this first big campaign of the wilderness movement. He traces how citizens' groups unaccustomed to controversy got their act together and seized the attention of the national public, at a time when few people had even heard of the wilderness idea. He shows how eloquent citizen leaders such as Howard Zahniser and David Brower collaborated, and how a few courageous legislators took up the cause on Capitol Hill.

There were many legislative battles like this one in the years that followed, but this was the first big one, and Mark Harvey tells the story well.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Echo Park and Dinosaur National Monument, June 6, 2011

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classics) (Paperback)

This appeared at about the same time as Cosco's _Echo Park: Struggle for Conservation_, and covers much of the same ground. The differences flow mostly from length - - Cosco's book is half as long as this one.

With more space, Harvey can cover events with much greater richness. For example, he places the controversy in a larger context and spends more time talking about non-environmental opposition to the dam. Those opponents include not only California (covered in Cosco) but small-government conservatives, even in the West; the Army Corps of Engineers; Midwestern states worried about the effects on farm surpluses; and some divided states such as New Mexico.

Harvey also spends more time talking about the members of the conservationist coalition, instead of telling the story from David Brower's perspective. His early chapters also ground the story of the monument more fully, explaining how and why Ickes enlarged the monument instead of simply describing the events.

Some of the extra detail is more than we really need, and there's a little backtracking and repetition. Still, the narrative is well-written and moves along nicely. It can't be easy to write a book that makes water policy interesting, but Harvey has succeeded here. It's a shame that this book is not for sale in the park alongside Cosco's (which is). The choice depends on the level of detail you want.