Donald Worster

Nature's Economy is a wide-ranging investigation of ecology's past. It traces the origins of the concept, discusses the thinkers who have shaped it, and shows how it in turn has shaped the modern perception of our place in nature.

The West remains unsettled, both by cultural habits, intellectual debate, and ecological conditions. In these four essays, comprising the Calvin P. Horn Lectures in Western History and Culture, Donald Worster incisively discusses just how the natural environment has played an active, critical role in the making of the West - and often in its unmaking and remaking. His subjects are four linked topics: the legacy of John Wesley Powell to western resource management; the domination of water policy by state, science, and capital since the mid-nineteenth century; the fate of wildlife in the push to settle the West; and the threat of global warming to the Great Plains. The landscape of the West has for too long been seen as a challenge to be overcome. But in Worster's view it is seeing how people have dealt with and, all too often, mishandled nature that gives urgency to better understanding the region's ecological history. Worster argues for a new relationship of western people to their surroundings based on benfits to a community rather than on gains to individuals.

When Henry David Thoreau went for his daily walk, he would consult his instincts on which direction to follow. More often than not his inner compass pointed west or southwest. "The future lies that way to me," he explained, "and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side." In his own imaginative way, Thoreau was imitating the countless young pioneers, prospectors, and entrepreneurs who were zealously following Horace Greeley's famous advice to "go west." Yet while the epic chapter in American history opened by these adventurous men and women is filled with stories of frontier hardship, we rarely think of one of their greatest problems--the lack of water resources. And the same difficulty that made life so troublesome for early settlers remains one of the most pressing concerns in the western states of the late-twentieth century.^ The American West, blessed with an abundance of earth and sky but cursed with a scarcity of life's most fundamental need, has long dreamed of harnessing all its rivers to produce unlimited wealth and power. In Rivers of Empire, award-winning historian Donald Worster tells the story of this dream and its outcome. He shows how, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Mormons were the first attempting to make that dream a reality, damming and diverting rivers to irrigate their land. He follows this intriguing history through the 1930s, when the federal government built hundreds of dams on every major western river, thereby laying the foundation for the cities and farms, money and power of today's West. Yet while these cities have become paradigms of modern American urban centers, and the farms successful high-tech enterprises, Worster reminds us that the costs have been extremely high.^ Along with the wealth has come massive ecological damage, a redistribution of power to bureaucratic and economic elites, and a class conflict still on the upswing. As a result, the future of this "hydraulic West" is increasingly uncertain, as water continues to be a scarce resource, inadequate to the demand, and declining in quality. Rivers of Empire represents a radically new vision of the American West and its historical significance. Showing how ecological change is inextricably intertwined with social evolution, and reevaluating the old mythic and celebratory approach to the development of the West, Worster offers the most probing, critical analysis of the region to date.^ He shows how the vast region encompassing our western states, while founded essentially as colonies, have since become the true seat of the American "Empire." How this imperial West rose out of desert, how it altered the course of nature there, and what it has meant for Thoreau's (and our own) mythic search for freedom and the American Dream, are the central themes of this eloquent and thought-provoking story--a story that begins and ends with water.

Constance Schulz has brought together a diverse array of photographs from three extensive documentary projects: the Farm Security Administration, the Office of War Information, and Standard Oil of New Jersey. The result is a unique visual record of American life by photographers Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, Edwin and Louise Rosskam, and Charles Rotkin. Collectively, their work has immortalized the faces and emotions of. FSA-aided farmers and the harsh lives of coal miners, dust bowl debris and tumbleweeds, a failed bank and thriving stockyard, locomotives and Mexican-American railroad workers, oil derricks, wheat country, black cavalry troops, and 4-H Club fairs. In his enlightening introduction, environmental historian Donald Worster provides essential historical context for the images.

A definitive biography traces the life of John Muir from his boyhood in Scotland up to his death on the eve of World War I and offers important insights into the passionate nature of America's first great conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club.

"The discovery of the Americas around 1500 AD was an extraordinary watershed in human experience. It gave rise to the modern period of human ecology, a phenomenon global in scope that set in motion profound changes in almost every society on earth. This new period, which saw the depletion of the lands of the New World, proved tragic for some, triumphant for others, and powerfully affecting for all."--Provided by publisher.

Under Western Skies: One Baby to Go, Please/Marriage on the Menu/Daddy Takes the Cake (Montana Mavericks: Rumor, Montana #3-5) Montana, Big Sky country, the place where legendary love is dramatically revealed. Now a new chapter begins as the town of Rumor gives birth to more exciting tales with the continuation of the Montana MAvericks saga . . . Bestselling authors Laurie Paige, Linda Turner and Allison Leigh present three brad-new stories full of original, fascinating characters and a town that is certain to create its own awe-inspiring legends! When the fun-loving town of Rumor throws a Crazy Moon Festival celebrating the lunar eclipse, there's no telling what'll happen! Top in at the Calico Diner, where three sassy waitresses discover the truth behind the local legend: If you meet a man under the crazy moon, you're sure to be a bride soon. One Baby to Go, Please -Laurie Paige brings a charming new slant to the single mom story. Jordan's sperm donation was only supposed to be used by his wife. After she dies, he discovers that a stranger may have been inseminated with his sperm and carrying his child. His search brings him to two women, and he can't help but hope it is Marisa, who stirs feelings in him that he thought had died with his wife. Marriage on the Menu- Linda Turner Nick, the man Callie has loved for years, suddenly notices that she's all grown up. Can he blame this sudden knowledge on the Crazy Moon Festival? Daddy Takes the Cake- Allison Leigh The death of his wife and son leaves Marcus quite content to be alone. That is, until he visits the Crazy Moon Festival. After rescuing the widow Adler's two children, he finds himself their prime candidate for dad.