Loving Nature, Fearing the State: Environmentalism and Antigovernment Politics before Reagan

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments Like most activities in life, writing a book is never a solitary endeavor, even if it feels that way. No one thinks or creates in isolation, and scholarly work is always something of a group project. It gives me immense pleasure to be able to express my gratitude to all the people who assisted me in ways large and small during the time it took to produce Loving Nature, Fearing the State. First, I would like to thank friends and colleagues at, or associated with, the University of Kansas and the city of Lawrence for everything from detailed advice to general support: Jay Antle, Kevin Armitage, Eric Baerren , Bob Blackstone, Lisa Brady, Jeff Bremer, Robb Campbell, Greg Cushman , David and Carol Dewar, Jonathan Earle and Leslie Tuttle, Jeff Filipiak, Jasonne Grabher, Megan Greene and Tony Melchor, Dixie and Gina Haggard , Shen Hou, Maril Hazlett and Brian Trigg, Mark and Laurie Hersey, Crystal Johnson, Marie Kelleher, Brett and Stephanie Knappe, Jim Leiker, Chris O’Brien, the late Phil Paludan, Martha Robinson, Adam Rome, Valerie Schrag, Steve Sodergren, Bill Tsutsui, and Chris White. The staff of the University of Kansas history department, especially Ellen Garber and Sandee Kennedy, was also of much help to me, and I owe particular thanks to graduate director Eve Levin for her support for my scholarship applications . I am also grateful to the department for twice awarding me the Lila Atkinson Creighton scholarship and to the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Foundation for its 2005 Eddie Jacobsen Scholarship. Peter Iverson, Robert Goldberg, Jeffrey Stein, Laird Wilcox, James Calahan , Mark Harvey, John Baden, and Karl Hess Jr. offered me specific advice and for which I am grateful, as did the participants at my various presentations for the Hall Center for the Humanities’ Nature and Culture Seminar, the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, and the University of Georgia’s Workshop in the History of Agriculture and the Environment. Forarchivalassistance Iamindebtedto thestaffoftheArizonaHistorical Foundation, especially head archivist Linda Whitaker, whose enthusiasm and energy were a delight. Thanks also to Robert Spindler at the Arizona x Acknowledgments State University Libraries, the staff of the Special Collections library at the University of Arizona, the Cline Library Special Collections at Northern Arizona University, the Special Collections library at Montana State University , the American Dental Association library in Chicago, the Bieneke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas. University of Kansas professors Donald Worster, Karl Brooks, Bill Tuttle , Jeff Moran, and Jim Woelfel gave me the benefit of their considerable knowledge when Loving Nature, Fearing the State was still in its infancy. My adviser Donald Worster deserves special praise for his unflagging commitment to me and my fellow graduate students and for his trenchant critique of our work. No one who has studied under him comes away from the experience without some profound insights about good historical writing. From Don I learned that it demands both a critical eye and moral passion, it avoids parochialism and overspecialization, and it addresses itself to matters of broad, even timeless, intellectual interest. Good historical writing also requires clear and vigorous prose. I hope that in the course of writing this book I have put his lessons into practice satisfactorily. At the University of Georgia in the city of Athens, which I now call home, I have had the good fortune to work alongside a number of wonderful colleagues, such as Ari Levine, Adam Sabra, Steve Soper, Steven Mihm, and Montgomery Wolf. Three others deserve special mention. John Inscoe’s friendship has been invaluable, and I am convinced that you will not find a more caring and pleasant person in all of academe. Similarly, in my first two years at Georgia, fellow Jayhawk Paul Sutter patiently answered the barrage of questions I launched at him, and his unofficial mentorship did much to ease my transition from graduate student to faculty member. He has since left Georgia for the University of Colorado, but I still count him as one of my important influences as well as my friend. Finally, Stephen Berry is a fabulous historian, and his intellectual interests have enriched my own to no end. He has been a staunch advocate of my professional development, and I cannot thank him enough for that. Nor have I found many people whose outlook on life so closely matches my own. He, his wife, Frances, and his brother Patrick have become some of my...