Oregon: This Storied Land

Oregon's landscape boasts brilliant waterfalls, towering volcanoes, productive river valleys, and far-reaching high deserts. People have lived in the region for at least twelve thousand years, during which they established communities; named places; harvested fish, timber, and agricultural products; and made laws and choices that both protected and threatened the land and its inhabitants. William G. Robbins traces the state's history of commodification and conservation, despair and hope, progress and tradition. This revised and updated edition features a new introduction and epilogue with discussion of climate change, racial disparity, immigration, and discrimination. Revealing Oregon's rich social, economic, cultural, and ecological complexities, Robbins upholds the historian's commitment to critical inquiry, approaching the state's past with both open-mindedness and a healthy dose of skepticism about the claims of Oregon's boosters.

History

Robbins, William G.

Americas

University of Washington Press

Local history and overview of the economic effect of changes in the logging industry of Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850 to 1986.

Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850-1986

Business & Money

Economics

Univ of Washington Pr

A highly original history of the early years of Oregon's environment documents the influence of global market forces on the alterations of Oregon's landscape, leading to a creeping commodification of the land and its products. UP.

Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story 1800-1940 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Landscapes of Promise is the first comprehensive environmental history of the early years of a state that has long been associated with environmental protection. Covering the period from early human habitation to the end of World War II, William Robbins shows that the reality of Oregon's environmental history involves far more than a discussion of timber cutting and land-use planning. Robbins demonstrates that ecological change is not only a creation of modern industrial society. Native Americans altered their environment in a number of ways, including the planned annual burning of grasslands and light-burning of understory forest debris. Early Euro-American settlers who thought they were taming a virgin wilderness were merely imposing a new set of alterations on an already modified landscape. Beginning with the first 18th-century traders on the Pacific Coast, alterations to Oregon's landscape were closely linked to the interests of global market forces. Robbins uses period speeches and publications to document the increasing commodification of the landscape and its products. "Environment melts before the man who is in earnest," wrote one Oregon booster in 1905, reflecting prevailing ways of thinking. In an impressive synthesis of primary sources and historical analysis, Robbins traces the transformation of the Oregon landscape and the evolution of our attitudes toward the natural world.

Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Post-World War II Oregon was a place of optimism and growth, a spectacular natural region from ocean to high desert that seemingly provided opportunity in abundance. With the passing of time, however, Oregon’s citizens ― rural and urban ― would find themselves entangled in issues that they had little experience in resolving. The same trees that provided income to timber corporations, small mill owners, loggers, and many small towns in Oregon, also provided a dramatic landscape and a home to creatures at risk. The rivers whose harnessing created power for industries that helped sustain Oregon’s growth ― and were dumping grounds for municipal and industrial wastes ― also provided passageways to spawning grounds for fish, domestic water sources, and recreational space for everyday Oregonians. The story of Oregon’s accommodation to these divergent interests is a divisive story between those interested in economic growth and perceived stability and citizens concerned with exercising good stewardship towards the state’s natural resources and preserving the state’s livability. In his second volume of Oregon’s environmental history, William Robbins addresses efforts by individuals and groups within and outside the state to resolve these conflicts. Among the people who have had roles in this process, journalists and politicians Richard Neuberger and Tom McCall left substantial legacies and demonstrated the ambiguities inherent in the issues they confronted.

Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Blessed with vast expanses of virgin timber, a good harbor, and a San Francisco market for its lumber, the Coos Bay area once dubbed itself "a poor man's paradise." A new Prologue and Epilogue by the author bring this story of gyppo loggers, longshoremen, millwrights, and whistle punks into the twenty-first century, describing Coos Bay’s transition from timber town to a retirement and tourist community, where the site of a former Weyerhaeuser complex is now home to the Coquille Indian Tribe’s The Mill Casino.

Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, Revised Edition

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Robbins, William G.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Robbins, William G.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Robbins, William G.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Oregon: This Storied Land

Oregon: This Storied Land

Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850-1986

Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850-1986

Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story 1800-1940 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, Revised Edition

Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)