Northern Landscapes: the struggle for wilderness Alaska.

Daniel Nelson. 1616 P Street NW, Washington D.C. 20036-1400: RFF Press, 2004. [phone]. www.rffpress.org. ISBN 1-891853-85-6. 312 pp. $22.95 Paperback.

Northern Landscapes is an essential guide to Alaska's recent past and to contemporary local and national debates over the future of public lands and resources. It is the first comprehensive examination of the campaign to preserve wild Alaska through the creation of a vast system of parks and wildlife refuges. Drawing on archival sources and interviews, Daniel Nelson traces disputes over resources alongside the politics of the Alaska statehood movement. He provides in-depth coverage of the growth of Alaskan environmental organizations, their partnerships with national groups, and their participation in political campaigns into the 1970s and after.

Northern Landscapes focuses on efforts to persuade public officials to recognize the value of Alaska's mountains, forests, and wildlife. That activity culminated in the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, which set aside more than 100 million acres, doubling the size of the national park and wildlife refuge systems, and tripling the size of the wilderness preservation system. ANILCA also set the stage for continuing battles over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Alaska's national forests.

Daniel Nelson is professor emeritus of history at the University of Akron. His previous publications include Managers and Workers: Origins of the Twentieth-Century Factory System in the United States, 1880-1920 and Shifting Fortunes: The Rise and Decline of American Labor, from the 1820s to the Present.