The Quiet World - 9780062005960

"Dramatic and entertaining....A grand book...Compelling and impressively well researched....By far the best and most detailed story of the Roosevelt administration's fight for conservation." ---The Boston Globe

"Although Roosevelt's presidency ended one hundred years ago, Mr. Brinkley finds ways to make his presidential portrait a timely one.... The Wilderness Warrior describes a vigorously hands-on president....He conveys the great vigor with which Roosevelt approached his conservation mission." ---The New York Times

"A masterful look at TR as environmental crusader and ultimate outdoorsman....Engrossing, compellingly written.... Brinkley's Roosevelt is P. T. Barnum, Walt Whitman, and Captain Ahab all rolled into one." ---Los Angeles Times

"It is a testament to the unparalleled hugeness of his life that a nearly thousand-page biography of Theodore Roosevelt is still capable of breaking new ground." ---Time

"A stupendous new work.... This is biography at its absolute finest: learned and thorough, to be sure, but also lively and surprising and adventurous." ---The Chicago Tribune

"Douglas Brinkley has written a sweeping, blow-by-blow account of the struggle to preserve the last great remnants of American wilderness. An engaging appraisal of the crucial skirmishes in the battle over wild Alaska, The Quiet World is populated not only by such requisite luminaries as John Muir and Ansel Adams but also by a cast of quirky, unexpected characters. A fascinating and important read." ---Jon Krakauer

A riveting history of America's most beautiful natural resources, The Quiet World documents the heroic fight waged by the U.S. federal government from 1879 to 1960 to save wild Alaska---Mount McKinley, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, and the Coastal Plain of the Beaufort Sea, among other treasured landscapes---from the extraction industries. Award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley traces the wilderness movement in Alaska, from John Muir to Theodore Roosevelt to Aldo Leopold to Dwight D. Eisenhower, with narrative verve. Basing his research on extensive new archival material, Brinkley shows how a colorful band of determined environmentalists created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge just before John F. Kennedy became president.

Brinkley introduces a lively gallery of characters influential in preserving Alaska's wilderness resources: the indomitable U.S. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, who championed the Brooks Range; charming Ivy League explorer Charles Sheldon, who led the campaign to create Denali National Park; intrepid Bob Marshall, who cofounded The Wilderness Society; hermit illustrator Rockwell Kent, who lived in isolation on Fox Island like a modern Thoreau; nature photographer Ansel Adams, whose image Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake set off a tsunami of public interest in America's tallest peak; and U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Rachel Carson, who promoted proper ocean stewardship; among many more.

Wildlife fervently comes to life in The Quiet World: Brinkley tells incredible stories about the sea otters in the Aleutians, moose in the Kenai Peninsula, and birdlife across the Yukon Delta expanse while exploring the devastating effects that reckless overfishing, seal slaughter, and aerial wolf hunting have wrought on Alaska's once-abundant fauna. While taking into account Exxon Valdez---like oil spills, The Quiet World mainly celebrates how the U.S. government has preserved many of Alaska's great wonders for future generations to enjoy.