This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild [9780063268692]

Overview

Winner of the High Plains Book Award | Best Book of the Year - Outdoor Writers Association of America

"How could we have missed the swashbuckling story of Avis and Bernard DeVoto, tribunes of public lands, free speech and liberty itself? Thankfully we have it now from Nate Schweber, in telling and rich details that make clear its ties to Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and today's demagogue-ridden America."—Larry Tye, New York Times bestselling author of Demagogue

“A brilliant rendering of what 'the open space of democracy' must be if we are to survive its present state of erosion.”—Terry Tempest Williams

The untold and “energetic” history of the extraordinary couple who rescued national parks from McCarthyism—and inspired a future of conservation (Wall Street Journal)

In late-1940s America, few writers commanded attention like Bernard DeVoto. Alongside his brilliant wife and editor, Avis, DeVoto was a firebrand of American liberty, free speech, and perhaps our greatest national treasure: public lands. But when a corrupt band of lawmakers, led by Senator Pat McCarran, sought to quietly cede millions of acres of national parks and other western lands to logging, mining, and private industry, the DeVotos entered the fight of their lives. Bernard and Avis built a broad grassroots coalition to sound the alarm—from Julia and Paul Child to Ansel Adams, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Alfred Knopf, Adlai Stevenson, and Wallace Stegner—while the very pillars of American democracy, embodied in free and public access to Western lands, hung in the balance. Their dramatic crusade would earn them censorship and blacklisting by Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Roy Cohn, and it even cost Bernard his life.

In This America of Ours, award-winning journalist Nate Schweber uncovers the forgotten story of a progressive alliance that altered the course of twentieth-century history and saved American wilderness—and our country’s most fundamental ideals—from ruin.

This landmark political biography reveals the hidden history of their fight:

• A Formidable Literary Partnership: Follow Bernard DeVoto, the fiery writer, and Avis DeVoto, his brilliant editor, as they trade their pens for swords in the political battle of their lives.
• The Fight for Public Lands: Uncover the secret plot by Senator Pat McCarran and powerful special interests to privatize millions of acres of the American West, from national forests to parklands.
• Blacklisted During the Red Scare: Discover how the DeVotos’ crusade earned them the enmity of J. Edgar Hoover and made them targets of Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch hunts.
• An Unlikely Alliance: Learn about the remarkable grassroots coalition the DeVotos assembled, featuring allies from future chef Julia Child to iconic photographer Ansel Adams.