Product Description

What has been done to our public lands? Irreplaceable forests harvested for lumber. Vast expanses of rangeland leased at rates far below market value. Mineral resources extracted with little or no royalties paid. These and other actions have brought unparalleled benefit to private interests-and massive costs to society at large. They are but the most visible signs of the fundamental flaws in the current system of federal lands management. In Plundered Promise, leading resource management scholar Richard W. Behan presents an engrossing history and analysis of public lands management in the United States, as he describes how we arrived at the current situation and examines what we can do to rectify it.

Behan begins by outlining his provocative thesis that American political and economic institutions have overshot their historic roles, and, rather than responding to public needs, have drawn society into their service. He then offers a detailed analysis of the development of the federal resource management agencies from the nation's founding through successive legislative eras, highlighting the human actors responsible for their growth and change, and showing their relationship to the evolving institutions of American politics and capitalism.

The author's analysis ultimately focuses on the power of federal "iron triangles," and in particular the influence of the one nonpublic institution-"the unfettered and immortal institution of the American corporation"-that he holds responsible for the ongoing devastation of the public lands. Behan stresses the urgent need for reform and presents a radical proposal for getting there: The devolution of authority over public lands to "localized constituencies," and the reining in of corporations.

Behan's unique combination of social criticism, institutional analysis, history, and political science is guided by a strong moral compass, with a palpable sense of outrage bolstered by rigorous scholarship. The book is must reading for anyone interested in the past or future of our public lands, or in the influence of contemporary politics and capitalism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #972981 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.com Review
Federally owned lands, which make up about one-third of the land area of the United States, are in constant danger of being plundered, thanks to governmental corruption and predatory economics--forces that endanger not only the public domain, but also society at large.

"That is not a modest set of complaints," writes Richard Behan, whose book traces the start-and-stop development of federal land ownership and management over the last two centuries. That system, he writes, borrows from the European tradition of "crown lands," created by fiat to reserve areas from general use; benefiting more than a handful of nobles, the system also incorporates elements of Native American beliefs about the common ownership and stewardship of land. This development of a common estate, Behan argues, was not articulated to protect lands from a resource-hungry, uncontrolled economy that turns public services into private goods, which is their condition today. The resultant degradation of public lands, he continues, points to the need for new methods and models of management that emphasize conservation and preservation, not resource use.

Behan's wide-ranging, sometimes even scattershot book is provocative, and it is likely to excite discussion among those on all sides of public-lands controversies. Given current efforts to develop resources on federal reserves, it is also timely, and of much interest to environmental activists and students of resource policy alike. --Gregory McNamee