Everglades NP

Mount Katahdin

My current book project is:

Building the Green State: Conservation and Environmental Institution Building at the State and National Levels in the United States, 1781-2000 (in progress)

The world is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, most notably climate change. As American citizens wonder how their country can face these challenges, they need to better understand the 200 year history of the development of hundreds of agencies, bureaus, commissions, departments, and divisions at the state level to deal with conservation, environmental protection, and natural resources management. In this book project, I will compile and analyze the institutional lineages of these agencies in all 50 states and at the national level, from statehood through 2000. The resulting book, a narrative and analysis of the evolution and relationships among state and national environmental institutions, will deepen our knowledge into the capability of the United States to create the institutions necessary to tackle environmental problems, knowledge just as important as understanding the science in our efforts to address these problems. I have gathered data for all 50 states and have begun to analyze and write about these institutions.

Wind Cave NP

North Cascades NP

American Environmental Policy: Beyond Gridlock, updated and expanded edition, 2013, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, co-author (with David J. Sousa).

The first edition of the book, which won the American Political Science Association’s 2008 Lynton Keith Caldwell Award for best book in environmental politics and policy, examined the forces leading to gridlock on national environmental policy in the United States from 1990-2006. We argue that this has not translated into policy gridlock; rather policy has moved onto other pathways: appropriations and budget politics, executive politics, the courts, collaboration, and the states. This revised edition updates our narrative, from 2006-2012.

The Story of Vermont: A Natural and Cultural History, 2d ed., 2015, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, co-author (with Stephen C. Trombulak).

In this second edition we both update the story of the Vermont landscape as shaped by geological, biological, and cultural forces as well as more fully integrate our discussions of natural history with cultural history.

My previous scholarship has focused on two main areas:

1. American political development and conservation, resource management, and environmental quality, which resulted in a book and articles in Political Science Quarterly, Natural Resources Journal, Polity, Studies in American Political Development, and Policy Studies Journal, as well as several book chapters.

Who Controls Public Lands?: Mining, Forestry, and Grazing Policies, 1870-1990, 1996, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

2. Conservation policy in New England, including two edited books:

Wilderness Comes Home: Rewilding the Northeast, editor, 2001, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

The Future of the Northern Forest, 1994, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, co-editor (with Stephen C. Trombulak).