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This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis Devoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild
This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis Devoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild | Nate Schweber
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The untold story of the extraordinary fight to defend American wilderness from McCarthyism, and the radical couple who led the charge--and inspired a future of conservation In late-1940s America, few writers commanded attention like Bernard DeVoto. Alongside his brilliant wife and editor, Avis, DeVoto was a firebrand of American liberty, free speech, and perhaps our greatest national treasure: public lands. But when a corrupt band of lawmakers, led by Senator Pat McCarran, sought to quietly cede millions of acres of national parks and other western lands to logging, mining, and private industry, the DeVotos entered the fight of their lives. Bernard and Avis built a broad grassroots coalition to sound the alarm--from Julia and Paul Child to Ansel Adams, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Alfred Knopf, Adlai Stevenson, and Wallace Stegner--while the very pillars of American democracy, embodied in free and public access to Western lands, hung in the balance. Their dramatic crusade would earn them censorship and blacklisting by Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Roy Cohn, and it even cost Bernard his life. In This America of Ours, award-winning journalist Nate Schweber uncovers the forgotten story of a progressive alliance that altered the course of twentieth-century history and saved American wilderness--and our country's most fundamental ideals--from ruin.
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It's not often that an American history book is a complete surprise to me. I didn't think I'd ever heard of the DeVotos before picking this up, but they are important figures in America's history of public lands & national parks. Fascinating book. A must read for anyone interested in the history of the American West, conservation & governmental corruption in the 40s and 50s.

ARC read - book due July 5.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/yc6uu9e8

stevesbookstuf1 Avis DeVoto by the way, is the “foster-mother, wet-nurse, guide and mentor“ for Julia Child in publishing “Mastering the Art of French Cooking“. If you've seen the movie “Julie and Julia“ then you already know part of Avis's story. I didn't make that connection when picking up this book. 2y
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