Customer Reviews

Wayne Aspinall and the Shaping of the American West

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a masterful biography of a congressman who was a central figure at mid-20th Century, when our national conservation policies were being transformed to protect natural values of the land. Wayne N. Aspinall (Democrat of Colorado) was chairman of a committee that handled the Wilderness Act and many national park laws. The author makes it clear that Mr. Aspinall never understood the public's desire to protect irreplaceable wild places, and the concept of ecology never entered his thinking. To his dying day he regarded parks and wilderness as frivolous. For 15 years he used his power as chairman to delay every conservation measure, and he extracted concessions favoring mining, logging and grazing industries. It's worthwhile to read how he did it, because there are still a few legislators with his viewpoint in Congress.

For a contrasting biography, read "Mo: the Life and Times of Morris K. Udall," by Donald W. Carson and James W. Johnson, about a legislator who followed Mr. Aspinall as chairman and led Congress in adding more land to the National Park System than ever before.