Rare For Earth's Sake - Signed by David Brower - First Edition - Environmentalist [Hardcover] David Brower

by David Brower

This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection

Genres: Biography, Environment

Hardcover

First published March 1, 1990

About the author

David Ross Brower was a prominent environmentalist and the founder of many environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club Foundation, the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies, Friends of the Earth (1969), the League of Conservation Voters, Earth Island Institute (1982), North Cascades Conservation Council, and Fate of the Earth Conferences. From 1952 to 1969 he served as the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and served on its board three times: from 1941–1953; 1983–1988; and 1995-2000. As a younger man, he was a prominent mountaineer.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Memoirs usually disappoint me, but I thought I would give this one a read. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it to any except for those who are directly interested in the subject and those who want to have a comprehensive understanding of late 20th century environmental movements.

David Brower was influential in guiding me away from academia to follow a trail of activism. Unknown to me at the time, he was a key part of what drew me to Berkeley. I was fortunate not only to meet him, but also to be invited to one of his famous pancake breakfasts where he grilled me about the purpose of my research and how it would be used.

The structure of the memoir is disjointed, not entirely chronological or thematic. As a result, there are many flash forwards, flashbacks and repetition. While I'm all for recycling, he padded the memoir with memos, articles and speeches reprinted with little editing, sometimes in their entirety. There is a lot of name-dropping and at the same time some very important people connected to his work are given short shrift or left out entirely. Also disappointing to me is the way that he avoided any depth in telling how he was forced to resign first as Sierra Club's Executive Director and then as ED of Friends of the Earth. These came off as painful subjects and his loss of long-time friends and supporters was legendary. Here he had a chance to tell his side of the story in greater detail, but demurred.

Brower was a visionary and the memoir provides some insight into his thinking, but not enough. In so many ways he was far ahead of his time. He foretold of the Exxon Valdez disaster fifteen years before it occurred. Yet, we get very little of what he sees after him, other than a passionate plea for wildness.

For those who are seriously interested in the history and evolution of environmentalism, the book makes a contribution. The memoir gives clues for documents that can be retrieved from the Bancroft Library. However, For Earth's Sake is a leisurely read.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Brower was a good friend and one of my personal heroes. I met him through Friends of the Earth Foundation. You may recall that after he left the Sierra Club he founded Friends of the Earth. David was a visionary and poet as well as successful mobilizer and activist. This book is a compilation of his writings (not all of them) about his life, the people he worked with (see Chapter 5), the causes he took up. Even I, who admired him, have not read it cover to cover. I have dipped into many times for vignettes of the environmental movement in the 20th C, in the second half of which David was the leading activist in the public eye, a true successor to John Muir. I think his work at the Sierra Club kept a dam out of the Grand Canyon (though it lost the club tax-deductible status). "Should they flood the Sistine Chapel so the tourists can see the ceiling?"

One of Brower's legacies was the advice that our generation should be "good ancestors." The exhibit format books he produced for the Sierra Club and then for FOE are part of that legacy too. This is the American Earth THE PLACE NO ONE KNEW: Glen Canyon on the Colorado. are two examples of a score of titles.

The man rates six stars; the book is too long and disjointed to call for even five, but am I glad it exists for students of the American environmental movement. Encounters With the Archdruid is John McPhee's wonderful account of short expeditions as a listener to walking discussions between David and different policy adversaries like a mining engineer or dam-builder. I should put that on my shelf right now.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago I read McPhee's book about Dave Brower - now it is good to read his story from his own pen. He writes sharply, energetically, passionately, and true. He has had an interesting life - most of the book is things that he wrote either for publication or for a speech he was giving. His love for the wildness and the wilderness is exhilarating.

[Erik Wirfs-Brock · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the better bad books I have ever read (paradoxically),a theoretical autobiography that's mainly a collection of the notable mid century environmentalists articles and forewords to various books. I found myself skimming a lot of it, but his recollections of his early life were charming, and I actually got insight about being a nonprofit leader. But yeah, rambling, repetitive and disjointed.