Landscapes of Confict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000 (review)

Landscapes of Conflict continues the narrative that Robbins began in Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800–1940 (Seattle, 1997), and the new book is a worthy successor to the first volume. The "Foreword" by William Cronon defines the two books as "environmental history," but they are equally studies in economic history. Landscapes of Conflict is organized around the major industrial uses of Oregon's natural resources: dam-building for hydroelectric power and navigation, agriculture, forestry, industrial and domestic uses of flowing water, and farmland preservation through land-use regulation. Each discussion begins with development enthusiasts who promoted more intensive resource exploitation before moving to the responses of public officials and examining the emergence of alternative "environmentalist" views. The two most prominent individuals are Richard Neuberger, a journalist and senator who consistently advocated public power and federal resource development, and Tom McCall, a two-term governor who pushed and presided over significant environmental legislation. Close behind is Douglas McKay, businessman, governor, and secretary of the interior for President Eisenhower.

One of Robbins' overarching themes is the ideology of modernism and its weaknesses. The period from 1940 to 1970 in the Pacific Northwest was the climax of the modernist project of scientifically based landscape control, which tried to overcome limits to production through "the notion that scientific expertise and greater technical efficiency can resolve agricultural and environmental problems" (112). More recent decades have witnessed cumulative doubt about whether the modernist approach has delivered its full promise. The result has been increasing interest in "setting boundaries to human practices" (112), notably through the state's land-use planning system adopted in the early 1970s.

The second theme, familiar from Robbins' earlier Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the American West (Lawrence, 1994), is the influence of national and global markets, national corporate decisions, and flows of investment capital on the development of the Pacific Northwest. Oregon is no isolated Eden but rather an economic hinterland controlled by larger economic forces. As Oregonians relearn at every economic downturn, the state is often a tail wagged by the big dog of California.

This latter theme raises an important theoretical question: How useful and valid are state boundaries for delimiting the topics of economic-environmental history? Oregon, after all, shares all of its major physical provinces with adjacent states. As Robbins makes clear, however, states as sovereign entities have significant capacity to reshape and channel national influences through legislation, administrative agencies, and political culture. The state's tourist promotion slogan of the 1990s—"Oregon: Things Look Different Here"—met considerable local derision, but it had an element of truth. Because of political leadership and policy innovation, Oregon does look different from, say, Idaho.

This book is not a testing ground for new methodologies. Rather, it makes telling use of standard documentary resources. Readers interested in Oregon as a physical place will find it interesting to read Landscapes of Conflict in conjunction with the sumptuously prepared maps in William G. Loy et al., Atlas of Oregon (Eugene, 2003). Those interested in pursuing the development of Oregon's environmental reputation and practice can also consult Richard W. Judd and Christopher S. Beach, Natural States: The Environmental Imagination in Maine, Oregon, and the Nation (Washington, D.C., 2003). However, scholars, environmental activists, and Oregon's citizens should all start with Robbins' wide-ranging and insightful overview of "The Oregon Story."