Set in Alaska's coastal rain forest, "Tongass is a story by turns dismaying and inspiring, of greed, courage, bare-knuckles politics, and the fate of a remote, wild, beautiful land. After World War II, the U.S. government lured two pulp companies to Southeast Alaska by promising them low-cost timber from the Tongass National Forest, the planet's largest coastal temperate rain forest. The mills bought jobs and growth to a sparsly settled region. They also wreaked ecological havoc and created a timber industry that broke labor unions, drove competitors out of business, and controlled...

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, setting into motion one of the great land-use experiments of modern times. The act struck a compromise between protection for one of the West s most stunning landscapes the majestic Gorge carved by Ice Age floods, which today divides Washington and Oregon and encouragement of compatible economic development in communities on both sides of the river.
In "Bridging a Great Divide, " award-winning environmental journalist Kathie Durbin draws on interviews, correspondence, and extensive research to tell...