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Popular writers and historians alike have perpetuated the powerful myth of the rugged-individualist single-handedly transforming the American West. In reality, William Robbins counters, it was the Guggenheims and Goulds, the Harrimans and Hearsts, and the Morgans and Mellons who masterminded what the West was to become. Remove the romance, he shows, and a darker West emerges--a colonial-like region where "industrial statesmen," aided by eastern U.S. and European capital, manipulated investments in pursuit of private gain while controlling wage-earning cowboys and miners. Robbins argues that understanding the impact of capitalism on the West--from the fur trade era to the present--is essentia...
Landscapes of Promise is the first comprehensive environmental history of the early years of a state that has long been associated with environmental protection. Covering the period from early human habitation to the end of World War II, William Robbins shows that the reality of Oregon's environmental history involves far more than a discussion of timber cutting and land-use planning.
The dawn of the twentieth century saw enormous changes throughout the United States, reflecting technological advances, population growth, widespread industrialization, and the establishment of a national market economy. In the Far West, these changes, combined with the rapid westward expansion of advanced capitalism and the impact of national political and economic pressures, brought with them a period of political conflict, social upheavals, and labor struggles. They also helped westerners define themselves, their values, and their relationship to the rest of the nation. Seattle was one of the western cities that boomed during this period. By the end of the nineteenth century, the city was...
William Robbins addresses efforts by individuals and groups within and outside the state to resolve inevitable conflicts between those most concerned for growth and perceived economic stability and those most concerned to preserve the quality of the state's natural resources and the environment in which its citizens live."This is, make no mistake about it, an important book. Oregon faces massive land-use and environmental issues, and this history of how we really got to where we are is relevant and predictive. Those who control how Oregon will go in the future need to read this book thoroughly. And that includes the people who have the most power ... the voters."--Salem Statesman Journal"The...
"In The Defoliation of America, Amy M. Hay profiles the attitudes, understandings, and motivations of grassroots activists who rose to fight the use of phenoxy herbicides (commonly known as the Agent Orange chemicals) in various aspects of American life during the post-WWII era. First introduced in 1946, these chemicals mimic hormones in broadleaf plants, causing them to, essentially, grow to death while grass, grains, and other monocots remain unaffected. By the 1950s, millions of pounds of chemicals were produced annually for use in brush control, weed eradication, other agricultural applications, and forest management. The herbicides allowed suburban lawns to take root and become iconic s...
"Oregon is a landscape of brilliant waterfalls, towering volcanoes, productive river valleys, and far-reaching high deserts. It is also a land of stories. People have lived on the Oregon landscape for at least twelve thousand years, and during that time they have established communities, named places, built railroads, harvested fish and timber, and made laws that both protected and threatened the land. It is a history of commodification and conservation, of despair and hope, of progress and tradition. Oregon: This Storied Land tells many of those stories, giving us a broad, sweeping history of a state that has resisted being made into a stereotype. 'We live in a place rich with complex social, economic, cultural, and ecological meaning,' the author tells us, and then he proceeds to unravel the complexities and uncover the riches for us. Robbins writes in the introduction: 'This book attempts to remain true to a historian's commitment to critical inquiry, to interrogate the past with a critical lens, to raise uncomfortable questions, to approach Oregon's history with an open-mindedness and a healthy dose of skepticism about the claims of its boosters.' "