History Forum In-Person: Making America’s Public Lands, Saturday, April 20, 2024 2:00PM

Item details

Date

Saturday, April 20, 2024 2:00PM

Name

History Forum In-Person: Making America’s Public Lands

Description

Environmental historian Adam Sowards traces the long history of public lands in the United States from the beginning of the republic to current events. The concept of “public” has always been one of competing visions and values, from homesteaders attempting to realize the ideal of the Jeffersonian republic, to western ranchers using the open range to promote free enterprise, to wilderness activists who see these lands as wild places, free from human encumbrance. Sowards deftly navigates the complex history of nearly 640 million acres of land and its intimate relationship to ongoing debates about our national identity, values, and politics.

 

Biography:

Adam M. Sowards is a freelance writer and editor and professor emeritus of history at the University of Idaho. An environmental historian and writer, he specializes in public lands and conservation in the US West, especially the Pacific Northwest, and their relationship with American democracy. In addition to Making America’s Public Lands, he is author of the award-winning An Open Pit Visible from the Moon: The Wilderness Act and the Fight to Protect Miners Ridge and the Public Interest, The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation, and United States West Coast: An Environmental History.