Bøker av William G. Robbins

This book gives us the map and the compass we need to chart our course through the confusing terrain of the Western past and present. Drawing our attention to the central role of capitalism as a shaper of attitudes and social relations.

Presents a story of gyppo loggers, longshoremen, millwrights, and whistle punks. The author describes Coos Bay's transition from timber town to a retirement and tourist community, where the site of a former Weyerhaeuser complex is home to the Coquille Indian Tribe's Mill Casino.

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. This title addresses efforts by individuals and groups within and outside the state to resolve these conflicts.

For years the logging industry and the rich timberlands of the East and West coasts have evoked images of Jigger Jones and Paul Bunyan, lusty lumbermen of folk history. Behind these myths, however, lie the realities of ruthless competition, heedless exploitation of forestlands, and massive overproduction that once threatened to destroy the lumber industry. William G. Robbins reveals a sharply revisionist view of the lumber industry in the first half of the twentieth century, a period of drastic growth and change. He offers a unique national perspective on the dominant figures in logging--the large-scale plant, mill, and timberland owners whose decisions were shaped by profit seeking. It is a story of unbalanced production, economic gains and losses, the slow maturation of industrial capitalism, and the alarming toll in social and human costs. Modernizers in the industry developed trade associations as a means of controlling the widespread disorder. But these associations, dependent of voluntary and cooperative efforts, were relatively ineffective in the early years of the twentieth century. The fortunes of the lumber industry continued to fluctuate wildly until the Second World War, when lumbermen gained much of the legislative support they had sought so long from the federal government. This account will especially appeal to students of lumber and forest history as well as to historians, political scientists, and economists seeking a new approach to American political economy.

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, Oregons 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 Oregons 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 Oregons 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 states natural resources and preserving the states livability. In his second volume of Oregons 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 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. "e;Environment melts before the man who is in earnest,"e; 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.