This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis Devoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild -- Nate Schweber, Hardcover

The untold story of the extraordinary fight to defend American wilderness from McCarthyism, and the radical couple who led the charge--and inspired a future of conservation

In late-1940s America, few writers commanded attention like Bernard DeVoto. Alongside his brilliant wife and editor, Avis, DeVoto was a firebrand of American liberty, free speech, and perhaps our greatest national treasure: public lands. But when a corrupt band of lawmakers, led by Senator Pat McCarran, sought to quietly cede millions of acres of national parks and other western lands to logging, mining, and private industry, the DeVotos entered the fight of their lives. Bernard and Avis built a broad grassroots coalition to sound the alarm--from Julia and Paul Child to Ansel Adams, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Alfred Knopf, Adlai Stevenson, and Wallace Stegner--while the very pillars of American democracy, embodied in free and public access to Western lands, hung in the balance. Their dramatic crusade would earn them censorship and blacklisting by Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Roy Cohn, and it even cost Bernard his life.

In This America of Ours, award-winning journalist Nate Schweber uncovers the forgotten story of a progressive alliance that altered the course of twentieth-century history and saved American wilderness--and our country's most fundamental ideals--from ruin.

Author: Nate Schweber
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 07/05/2022
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780358438816

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/02/2022
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2022

About the Author
NATE SCHWEBER is an award-winning journalist for the New York Times and ProPublica, among many other publications. The Outdoor Writers Association of America awarded him a conservation writing award in 2015 and magazine writing awards in 2015 and 2018. He has appeared on Today, CNN, and WNYC. A Montana native, he currently lives in Brooklyn.