Publisher's Synopsis
Wildfire and Americans is a passionate, deeply informed appeal for us to acknowledge that wildfire is not a fire problem but a people problem. There are no natural disasters, only people in disastrous circumstances. Many Americans are in the wrong places, channeled there by wrong policies. Roger G. Kennedy has pieced together the untold history of the Cold War-era policies that deliberately emptied America's cities and subsidized the suburban and exurban encroachment into a dangerous landscape that is becoming increasingly precarious with global warming.
Kennedy's understanding of the United States' history of transgressing nature's limits, his grasp of how politicians and industries stand to gain by leaving the problem unsolved, his familiarity with the science of fire, and, finally, his faith-grounded conviction regarding our moral responsibility toward both our environment and our fellow human beings make Wildfire and Americans more than a history of policies gone terribly awry-it is also a plan of action to reverse more than fifty years of wrong-headed and misguided policy.
