American Environmental History and Policy - by Frank T Manheim (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This timely book explores the rocky trajectory of US environmental history and policy from pre-European settlement to the present. It includes underreported aspects of early history, and the first in-depth synthesis of the framing and outcomes of the groundbreaking environmental laws of the 1970s.

While effective against pollution, the new regulatory system led to economic decline, antagonism in the business community and political division. The book traces and compares US policies with more successful policies adopted by the EU in the 1990s. With an afterword reviewing the dramatic events of the second Trump administration, the book suggests future pathways for reducing polarization and promoting reform.

Review Quotes

'An accessible history examining how environmental policy has been shaped in the United States, from a perspective spanning the first settlement of the continent to the world of today. It is an excellent source for understanding how legislation, regulation, and politics have intertwined to produce the responses we have seen to environmental concerns over time. The book offers a framework for understanding the modern political landscape, and how intense polarization has developed over matters of seeming vital importance to the health and wellbeing of everyone. Recognizing how and why these attitudes came about, the author argues, can help them to be overcome.' David G. Anderson, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Tennessee and Project Director, Paleoindian Database of the Americas

'Manheim's extended history allows a new and better understanding of the divisive environmental policy landscape in the US today.' Daniel Sarewitz, Emeritus Professor, Arizona State University and past editor-in-chief of Issues in Science and Technology