Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America

ISBN: 0062089250

Author: Brinkley, Douglas

Condition: Used

Douglas Brinkleys The Wilderness Warrior celebrated Theodore Roosevelts spirit of outdoor exploration and bold vision to protect 234 million acres of wild America. Now, in Rightful Heritage, Brinkley turns his attention to another indefatigable environmental leader-Teddys distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt-chronicling his essential yet undersung legacy as the founder of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and premier protector of Americas public lands. FDR built from scratch dozens of state park systems and scenic roadways. Pristine landscapes such as the Great Smokies, the Everglades, Joshua Tree, the Olympics, Big Bend, the Channel Islands, Mammoth Cave, and the slickrock wilderness of Utah were forever saved by his leadership.Brinkley traces FDRs love for the natural world back to his youth spent exploring the Hudson River Valley and bird-watching. As Americas president from 1933 to 1945, Roosevelt, a consummate political strategist, established hundreds of federal migratory bird refuges and spearheaded the modern endangered species movement. He brilliantly positioned his conservation goals as economic policy to fight the severe unemployment of the Great Depression. During its nine-year existence, the CCC put nearly three million young men to work on conservation projects-including building trails in the national parks, pollution control, land restoration to combat the Dust Bowl, and planting more than two billion trees.Within the narrative are brilliant capsule biographies of such environmental warriors as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, and Rosalie Edge. Rightful Heritage is essential reading for everyone seeking to preserve our treasured landscapes as an American birthright.