John Copeland Nagle shows how our reliance on environmental law affects the natural environment through an examination of five diverse places in the American landscape: Alaska's Adak Island; the Susquehanna River; Colton in California's Inland Empire; Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the badlands of North Dakota; and Alamogordo in New Mexico. Nagle asks why some places are preserved by the law while others are not, and he finds that environmental laws often have unexpected results while other laws have surprising effects on the environment. Nagle argues that sound environmental policy requires better coordination among the many laws, regulations, and social norms that determine the values and uses of our scarce lands and waters.

Jens Jensen was one of America's greatest landscape designers and conservationists. Using native plants and "fitting" designs, he advocated that our gardens, parks, roads, playgrounds, and cities should be harmonious with nature and its ecological processes--a belief that was to become a major theme of modern American landscape design. When Jensen died in 1951 at the age of 90, the New York Times called him "the dean of American landscape architecture." In Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens, Robert E. Grese evaluates Jensen's work against the background of landscape design traditions that included Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted, as well as earlier movements in Europe. Grese examines Jensen's part in the Chicago cultural renaissance that occurred just prior to World War I, a movement that brought social reform, a new understanding of ecology, organic trends in architecture, and great strides in American literature. Drawing on Jensen's writings and plans, interviews with people who knew him, and analyses of his projects, Grese presents a clear picture of Jensen's efforts to enhance and preserve "native" landscapes. Jens Jensen worked with some of the leading architects of his day--Sullivan and Wright among them--so many of his projects involved the extravagant estates of wealthy entrepreneurs in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. But Jensen also worked on schools, parks, playgrounds, hospitals, institutional homes, and government buildings. Long before environmental activists took over the idea, he foresaw the need to preserve the dunes, forests, prairies, and wetlands native to the Middle West. He championed the network of forest preserves around Chicago, protection of the Indiana Dunes (now a national lakeshore), the state park system in Illinois, and numerous parks in Wisconsin. Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens offers a compelling look at Jensen's visionary work and remarkable career.

The natural areas in the National Park System offer a fascinating variety -- lush forests, underwater nature trails along coral reefs, deserts in bloom, rivers through patches of wilderness, ever-shifting Atlantic barrier islands. They are precious habitat for wild creatures and vegetation, often serving as the last refuge against encroachment by civilization. Other parks tell about people: the ways of life, important events, and famous individuals from the time when humans first crosses from Asia into N. America some 13,000 years ago up to the present. This guide lists by state more than 170 lesser-known national parks, their accommodations, locations, and historical significance. Photos and maps.

The archaeology enthusiast will find this versatile guide contains treasure trove of information. A generous collection of black and white photos are scattered throughout this handy book, along with detailed maps, lodging and dining suggestions, and a broad listing of additional local points of interest. The volume's brief introductory chapters offer an overview of the archaeology of the Upper Midwest and explore the symbols and meanings of intricate rock art and effigy mounds. Eighty-five dedicated archaeology parks exist in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and northern Illinois. Wisconsin alone contains sixty-three of these outstanding parks. From Effigy National Monument in Iowa to the privately held Henschel Mounds in Wisconsin, this magnitude of managed sites is exceeded only by the abundance of archaeology sites found in the American Southwest.