Lynton Keith Caldwell: An Environmental Visionary and the National Environmental Protection Act by Wendy Read Wertz (review)

In Lynton Keith Caldwell: An Environmental Visionary and the National Environmental Protection Act, Wendy Read Wertz, a former student and friend of the late Caldwell, successfully delineates the prodigious career of one of the most influential scholars of environmental policy and public administration of the twentieth century. Wertz traces Caldwell's deep affection for the environment, from his childhood adventures in the woods of Indiana and his intellectual development as a graduate student at Harvard to the various university and institutional positions he held during his long, globe-spanning career. The biography admirably captures the prodigious volume of Caldwell's work with great detail and understanding, from his most well-known articles and books to unpublished papers, underscoring how his writing shaped and contributed to the field of environmental policy—none more influential than the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which over one hundred countries have emulated. Wertz uses the passage of NEPA in 1970 to drive the narrative of the book, as the "environmental decade" of the 1970s gave way to recession, the Reagan Administration, and a hostile Republican Congress in the 1990s, providing an overview of environmental policy during the past forty years. Throughout, Caldwell remained a staunch advocate of the law and its promise of a more holistic environmental policy for the nation. Although the book provides a rich and detailed account of Caldwell's role in the emergence and development of environmental policy in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century, it would have benefitted from deeper analysis and better use of oral history.

Wertz demonstrates Caldwell's importance to the field and the respect he garnered from colleagues around the world, although few in the field of environmental policy would not already be aware of this. The fine level of detail—including the inclusion, seemingly, of Caldwell's entire bibliography, not to mention events and conferences where he spoke—and the almost exclusive emphasis on the academic and professional side of Caldwell's life sometimes constrain the narrative, making it feel more like an annotated bibliography at times. Additionally, for such a large book, the narrative can be repetitive, as much of Caldwell's writing focused on a few key arguments. An analysis of how Caldwell's arguments and philosophy fit into the larger field of environmental policy and the environmental movement would have made a more engaging read. Instead, Caldwell's work seems isolated, with only passing reference to seminal environmental texts like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), which provided some of the impetus for the widespread public support of environmental initiatives.

At times, Caldwell seems to be only a passive bystander to monumental events such as the first Earth Day or attempts by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in the 1990s to roll back environmental regulations, including NEPA. Caldwell's reflections on the events leading up to NEPA's passage, or his teaching philosophy, would have made a more compelling discussion and provided a more significant contribution to the historiography. Wertz relies heavily on secondary sources and public speeches Caldwell made at the time, although her use of private letters, his personal calendar, and handwritten notes are novel and offer some glimpses into Caldwell's mind outside of scholarly work and speeches. The few times that the author inserts Caldwell's voice in the text are among the best parts of the book, such as his recollection of his decision to dedicate his life to environmental policy while overlooking the harbor in Hong Kong.

Too often Wertz uses block quotes that break the flow of the text, including long passages taken from laws or scholarly articles. Moreover, the citations tend to reiterate, almost to the point of exhaustion, that Caldwell's work is influential and important to the field of environmental policy. Wertz does not offer any new or interesting uses of oral history to...