understands the faults, folds, and fractures of law disguised as public policy. Brooks loves his home and geographical region, and he deftly enters the hearts and minds of the people who played out thisdrama. And he is an indefatigable and honest researcherwith a keen sense of the documents (not a few of them commonly overlooked) thatwill best point the way. The book isalso beautifully and carefully written. Itwill be in all of thePacific Northwest environmental collections for the foreseeable future. The author needs all his talents to sustain the tale.The environmental hero of the story, Idaho Power, is an unsympathetic David to theGoliath of thefederal government. Brooks trieshard: "More modest dams would better mesh human demands, company profits, and fishery imperativeswith theNorthwest's rhythmicwinter snows and spring runoffs" (p. 134).Modest dams or not, Idaho Power would quickly kill thefish ? counseled in the process, no doubt, by the "first witness" they would call before theFederal Power Commis sion, retiredU.S. Army Corps of Engineers North PacificCommander Thomas Robins (p. 201). This isthe man whose most notable con tribution to fish-hydro interactions was his insight that "ifyou could put amule through [the turbines] and keep him from drowning he would go through without being hurt" (LisaMighetto andWesley J. Ebel, Saving the Salmon: A History of theUS. Army Corps of Engineers' Efforts toProtectAnadromous Fish on theColumbia and Snake Rivers,Historical Research Associates, 1994). Brooks also had the unenviable job of bringing suspense and curiosity to the "public interest" decision making of theFederal Power Commission ? now theFederal EnergyRegu latory Commission (FERC) but stillone of the most dreary, unrepentant, and uninspired outposts in thehistory of administrative law. The author's ability to bring credibility and authenticity to thedeliberations of thisagency is alone worth theprice of thebook. The historiographical talents so convinc ingly displayed by Brooks in this story of the unbuilt great dam make us yearn for the sequels. One is a fuller storyof theNez Perce tribe's resistance to thisorgy of dam-building in theirhomelands. (The author was drawn into thisproject initiallyas an attorney for the Nez Perce.) But the tribesdo not get fullbilling here. "By trying to work alone," Brooks writes, "the treatytribesencountered deep-rooted ju dicial and administrative racism that inhibited theirpostwar legaloptions" (p. 220). That hap pened, to be sure, but it was not a consequence of the tribes"tryingtowork alone." Brooks does a splendid job of showing how theBonneville PowerAdministration assumed itsroles of partner, planner, and promoter of public power in the Pacific Northwest. The sequel would be an account of Bonneville's subsequent turn tonuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s,which led to the $7 billion regional debacle known as WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply System). The author could tell thisstoryas fewothers might. Public Power,Pri vateDams is a fine talewith room for more. William H. Rodgers, Jr. University of Washington School ofLaw WINDSHIELDWILDERNESS: CARS,ROADS,AND NATUREIN WASHINGTON'S NATIONALPARKS by David Louter University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2006. Illustrations, photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 257 pages. $35.00 cloth. Recently, historians have been unkind to the National Park Service (NPS), takingthefederal agency to task for itsembrace of automobiles, tourism, and consumer culture at the expense of wilderness and nature. Into thesewaters wades David Louter, a historian employed by theNPS who examines the evolving re lationship between Washington state's three national parks and theautomobile. Windshield Reviews 135 Wilderness isa nuanced treatmentof the NPS's evolving understanding of the automobiles and roads that give the drivingmasses access to pristine nature within the parks. Perhaps themost important insight Louter provides is thatwilderness and roads have not always been mutually exclusive categories, even after wilderness came tobe associated with the lack of roads. For those familiarwith the effortstobuild theColumbia RiverHighway during the 1910s, the discussion ofMt. Rainier National Park may seem familiar.Louter notes thatpark of ficials, such as NPS director StephenMather, embraced strategiesof landscape architectsand engineers to develop a harmonious relation ship between nature and themachine. Using localmaterials that seemed natural, theybuilt winding roads that emphasized the unfold ingof scenery as they slowly climbed into the high country. Park Superintendent Owen A. Tomlinson believed the roads that would make Mt. Rainier "accessible to the people...