United States
£ GBP
Students today are often confronted with disputes over the state of the environment. But to understand the issues, students need to understand their long history. This set examines over 200 of the most important environmental issues in U.S. history, organizing them chronologically from the Colonial period to the present. Each entry describes the sides of the issue, stakeholders of various positions, and both the immediate outcome and the long-term consequences of the result.
Sample topics include: the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and resulting addition of the Great Plains to the United States; the controversial mid-19th century plans for a large urban park in the middle of Manhattan (Central Park); the federal land grants given to railroads in the 1860s to build the transcontinental rail, and the resulting environmental effects that impact much of the West today; the 1921 discovery of tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock gasoline additive, which was implemented with little research as to the health impact; and, the current debates over drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
