I saw this review on Goodreads of the well-regarded A Wild Idea: How the Environmental Movement Tamed the Adirondacks by Brad Edmondson. The review is republished here with permission of the author.
***
| A really indispensable book for understanding Adirondacks history. A detailed look into the creation of the Adirondack Park Agency and the genesis of the modern day Park as we know it in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's fascinating to read of a time when the environmental lobby actually had influence; seems like another world. My only beef is that for most of the book, the undertone was an overly simplistic morality tale of bad guys (know it all enviros and their plutocratic sponsors) vs good guys (good salt-of-the-earth locals and virtuous, if misunderstood, developers). The only variation seemed to be the apparent grudging respect the author had for the hard-working staff of the Temporary Study Commission and early APA. And yet, the Conclusion chapter was much more balanced. It seemed to concede that the conservationists actually were right about at least some of their concerns. That aside, it truly did seem largely like a battle between millionaires (developers) and billionaires (AfPA), with locals powerless in helping shape their own future. The best aspect of the book is the way it weaves in the voices of those locals |
