Crisis of the Wasteful Nation: Empire and Conservation in Theodore Roosevelt’s America. By Ian Tyrrell.

Abstract

Ian Tyrrell has long been interested in ways that Americans connect with other parts of the world through nature, whether by importing alien species of trees and plants or ideas about conservation. In this fascinating study, Tyrrell brings his perspective to bear on one of the oldest chestnuts of American environmental history: the early conservation movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Historians have typically portrayed that movement as originating from diminishing forests and wildlife, threats to scenic wonders, and schemes to irrigate the arid West. Tyrrell concurs while also pointing out that the push for conservation gained strength following the U.S. acquisition of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Hawai’i, and other areas in the tropical world. The making of the American empire, he argues, greatly shaped how American leaders—notably, Theodore Roosevelt—thought about diminishing forests, minerals, and water sources around the world. Tyrrell traces their thinking with regard to global trends in deforestation, demand for fossil fuels, interest in irrigation, and concerns over public health. In their minds, the time had come for Americans to regulate forests, game animals, and energy sources, but so too ought the rest of the world, not least because American prosperity and imperial power increasingly depended on prudent use of natural resources.