The snail darter story has become an iconic episode in modern American history a classic case regularly voted one of the top three Supreme Court environmental decisions but also enjoying dubious public notoriety as the Most Extreme Environmental Case Ever. Behind the fish marched a bedraggled coalition: farmers whose land was being condemned for resale to private developers, Cherokee Indians, fishermen, local conservationists, and Zygmunt Plater and his students. They carried the campaign through federal agencies, a succession of skeptical courtrooms, two White House administrations,...