One of the most serious challenges to environmentalism that has emerged in the 1990s is the so-called Wise Use movement. While operating under the guise of an independent movement of small landowners, it is in reality a backlash against environmental protection measures, funded and organized by corporations with a vested interest in preventing further environmental gains. Let the People Judge collects the writings of a wide range of thinkers on the Wise Use movement and the controversies that fuel the Wise Use debate.

Over 634 million acres of the United States -- nearly a million square miles -- are federally owned. These American Lands is both a history and a celebration of that inheritance. First published in 1986, the book was hailed by Wallace Stegner as "the only indispensable narrative history of the public lands." This completely revised and updated edition is an unsurpassed resource for everyone who cares about, visits, or works with public land in the United States. With over 75 pages of new material, the volume covers:

• national parks
• national forests
• national resource lands
• wildlife refuges
• designated wildernesses
• wild and scenic rivers
• Alaska lands
• national trails

Each chapter outlines the history of the unit of public lands under discussion, clarifies the resource use and policy conflicts that are currently besetting it, and provides a detailed agenda of management, expansion, and preservation goals.