The Quiet Crisis and the Next Generation
Editorial Reviews
From Independent Publisher
This volume is really two books welded as one, the latter the logical outgrowth of the former, an American classic of the Conservation Movement. In 1963 when The Quiet Crisis appeared and soon reached the bestseller charts, Stuart Udall was serving as secretary of the interior. His boss, President John F. Kennedy, declared in the book's foreword, "As Mr. Udall's vivid narrative makes clear, the race between education and erosion, between wisdom and waste, has not run its course.... The nation's battle to preserve the common estate is far from won." Udall continues to chart the progress and failures of that ecological struggle. To The Quiet Crisis (reprinted in its entirety) Udall has added more than 100 pages including an introduction, nine chapters, and an informative chart, "Timetable of the Age of Ecology (19621988)." He, thus, expands the coverage and broadens and corrects the perspectives. As in the original, Udall mixes terse profiles of leading conservationist figures with frank discussions of the issues. Notables in The Quiet Crisis include Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Boone, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, the Roosevelts, and Frederick Law Olmsted. To "The Next Generation" he adds author Rachel Carson (a modem Darwin); David Brower (a John Muir of The Sierra Club and later Friends of the Earth); and Bob Marshall and Howard Zahnister (of the Wilderness Society). In describing their struggles and accomplishments as conservationists, Udall reveals the methods and tradition of the movement. Described as "instructors-to-the-nation," often through the media, are Ralph Nader, Barry Commoner, and Paul Ehrlich, dealing with interdependent issues of consumerism, ecology, and population crisis. Finally, Udall incorporates equal coverage of the issues of the eighties with chapters on "Science, Law, and Environment," "Confronting the Problem of Human Restraint," "Encounter with Reaganism," and "Ecology and the Future." To his lament "history will confirm that Ronald Reagan's legacy created a massive fiscal debt restricting the options of his successors and of the American people for positive action on behalf of their air, water, and land," he adds a pointed directive that all Americans must adapt their lifestyles to the earth's limited resources. It's an old song, but one we need to hear and sing again and again. Udall has updated his classic ecological study by building wisely upon the solid work of the past.
The Quiet Crisis and the Next Generation,Stewart L. Udall,Gibbs Smith,087905333X,Conservation Of Natural Resources (General),Conservation of natural resour,Conservation of natural resources,Development - Sustainable Development,Ecology,Environmental protection,General,History,History - General History,United States
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