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Also by Douglas Brinkley:

The Nixon Tapes, August 2014
Hardcover / e-Book
Cronkite, June 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
The Quiet World, January 2011
Hardcover
The Wilderness Warrior, August 2009
Hardcover
Gerald R. Ford, February 2007
Hardcover
The Great Deluge, May 2006
Hardcover
Parish Priest, January 2006
Hardcover
National Geographic Visual History of the World, November 2005
Hardcover
The Boys of Pointe du Hoc, May 2005
Hardcover
The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey to the Nobel Peace Prize, May 1999
Trade Size (reprint)

THE QUIET WORLD
By: Douglas Brinkley

Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960

HarperCollins
January 2011
On Sale: January 18, 2011
592 pages
ISBN: 0062005960
EAN: 9780062005960
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

A riveting history of America's most beautiful natural resources, The Quiet World documents the heroic fight waged by the U.S. federal government from 1879 to 1960 to save wild Alaska—Mount McKinley, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, and the Coastal Plain of the Beaufort Sea, among other treasured landscapes—from the extraction industries. Award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley traces the wilderness movement in Alaska, from John Muir to Theodore Roosevelt to Aldo Leopold to Dwight D. Eisenhower, with narrative verve. Basing his research on extensive new archival material, Brinkley shows how a colorful band of determined environmentalists created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge just before John F. Kennedy became president.

Brinkley introduces a lively gallery of characters influential in preserving Alaska's wilderness resources: the indomitable U.S. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, who championed the Brooks Range; charming Ivy League explorer Charles Sheldon, who led the campaign to create Denali National Park; intrepid Bob Marshall, who cofounded The Wilderness Society; hermit illustrator Rockwell Kent, who lived in isolation on Fox Island like a modern Thoreau; nature photographer Ansel Adams, whose image Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake set off a tsunami of public interest in America's tallest peak; and U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Rachel Carson, who promoted proper ocean stewardship; among many more.

Wildlife fervently comes to life in The Quiet World: Brinkley tells incredible stories about the sea otters in the Aleutians, moose in the Kenai Peninsula, and birdlife across the Yukon Delta expanse while exploring the devastating effects that reckless overfishing, seal slaughter, and aerial wolf hunting have wrought on Alaska's once-abundant fauna. While taking into account Exxon Valdez–like oil spills, The Quiet World mainly celebrates how the U.S. government has preserved many of Alaska's great wonders for future generations to enjoy.

Media Buzz

On Point - February 9, 2011