The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
Posted in Green Living Products on 03. May, 2010
- ISBN13: 9780618968411
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men—college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps—to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone els… More >>
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
I just heard an interview Egan, which left me less than likely to read this book. While it at first sounded interesting, the more the author spoke, the less interested I was. He claimed the fire in 1910 had a huge and negative impact on the US Forestry Service. When pressed by the interviewer he couldn’t really come up with anything concrete. This sounded very much like wanting to make something that wasn’t there. No doubt the 1910 had a huge impact on the Forestry Service, but I doubt a negative one. Furthermore he kept claiming that Roosevelt had initiated this conversion of public land into Federally owned forest land, making the assertion that it was unowned. Not to belabor the point, but it had been owned by various American Indian tribes, whose possession of the land had been eradicated by the US government. In fact, the author kept up the ongoing American love affair with Roosevelt, who would today be called a supporter of genocide. It was, after all, Roosevelt who said that the American Indian should be wiped out and that their lands all converted into national parks. The final nail in the coffin was that while recounting the conversion of land into Federal land he tried to recall the date of the Louisiana Purchase, completed in 1803, and couldn’t do it. What all this says to me that he has probably not done his homework and written an engaging book that involves Roosevelt (always good for book sales) but doesn’t really have much of a story to tell.
Rating: 2 / 5
I’m still in the middle of reviewing and reading this book, but it has been rather boring. Reading beware!
Rating: 3 / 5
The Big Burn Timothy Egan
Advance Reading Copy: Pub date 10/19/2009
I have come to the conclusion some of the greatest books are by newspaper journalist.
They have a way of retrieving data and present archives in a engaging manner.
Newspaper journalist fight for space and write with a certain economy to get their message across.
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & The Fire That Saved America is a very warm read. (no pun intended)
Associates could tell I was pumped to be in the middle of a good book.
It took me roughly thirteen hours over seven days to finish.
The prologue opens to a wall of flame where there are no other choices except face the fire, or seek to escape by way of train.
A wildfire which ravaged over 3 million acres and a number of states in one weekend.
Colorful narrative is used to describe the force and devastation.
One official assigned to assess the damage and explore preventative measures will come to the conclusion, “Fire is neither good or bad, it simply is”.
I deem the book a major literary work.
Early on, the reader is thrown into the ring, elbow to elbow with President Roosevelt, sitting in a overstuffed recliner in his upstate home, discussing national policy.
Gifford Pinchot proves to be a great proponent for the nation’s fledgling Forest Service.
John Muir is their guiding light, a simple man who made it a practice to throw some bread and tea in a pack for a hike in the country.
An Administration responsible for allocating a forest preserve a little over one and a half the size of Texas.
In matters involving corporate greed there are no gray lines.
Villains are well defined.
Evil runs rampant where a check on greed is not relegated.
Who are our great American contemporary heroes.
Who controls private interest.
Are we governing responsibly, how are resources being divided.
Fresh air, clean water, abundant wildlife.
Is there hope for the common man to not be overrun, and live the great American dream.
Pertinent issues to face at the advent of each ensuing century.
2010 marks the hundred year anniversary of the men and women who help shape Theodore Roosevelt’s vision of a thriving Parks Department.
Their faces and names won’t be forgotten because Timothy Egan work to record their story.
Imagine corrupt Senators working to undermine child labor laws and force minors to work twelve to fifteen hour days.
Jobs with no medical benefits and laborers who have no choice to return to work before injuries are healed.
Vast tracts of land awarded to railroad and mining interest to sell for profit, and strip away resources that can’t be replaced.
Given the choice, would you make Mount Rainer and the Grand Canyon a wildlife preserve.
It’s been many years since Theodore Roosevelt had a say in the matter.
I hope all the legislation his Administration work to pass doesn’t fall by the wayside.
After reading The Great Burn by Timothy Egan, I feel our country is sorely in need of some more heroes like the ones recorded here.
Entire chapters devoted to the devastating fire had a way of making the pores of my skin buckle and detect a subtle ghostly smoke in the air.
Only human nature to want to avoid such a ordeal.
A couple passages near the end of the book surrounding Franklin Roosevelt unwittingly help piece together a few threads of my life.
During the early 80′s, I was a member of the Washington State Young Adult Conservation Corps.
I was among a group of kids who worked alongside Forest Rangers combating forest fires overlooking Mount Baker.
I was in my early twenties, but the majority of the kids were in their teens, we never got to see any real firefighting action.
My first week I asked how come all the trees were cut down at the opening of the park.
My Supervisor said the lumber industry has timber rights on the perimeters.
Our job titles included Grub Hoe Attendant and Slash Burner.
Our main occupation was to drive up to sides of hill and inspect dwindling fires started by Rangers.
We were impressionable children given bladder bags of water to carry on our back and hoes to poke around the last embers.
I can feel President Franklin Roosevelt’s lasting effect, he wanted future generations to experience a well designed program first hand.
Many years later, I had a job at a local Cannery that was originally a Works Project for prisoners to can fruit for local inhabitants.
Eleanore Roosevelt dedicated the building, the bronze plaque is still on display, she planted a small rose hyacinth below the upper porch.
When I applied in the 90′s, the hyacinth had grown 15 feet, near the banister of the second story.
In the time I spent working at the cannery I witnessed the runs for Coho deplete, in addition to all the snow melting off my beloved Olympic Mountains.
They are the same sort of issues residents of Alaska are suffering with the snow pack gone and a mud slick stretching to their front door.
Timothy Egan The Big Burn poses some serious issues our country should be exploring if we are to come out of the 21st Century in one piece.
It’s exciting to read such marvelous literature, Amazon is a great place to discover different titles.
Rating: 5 / 5
As others have pointed out, this book is written with such a bias politically and ecologically that it suffers in the telling. Those gosh darn robber barons, ancestors of all of today’s Republicans, robbing the good citizens of the US from their natural resources. Well, they did that, sure. And without most of the individuals named, the country would still be huddled behind wooden stockades and starving in the winter. While not defending these people, seems to me that some of their contributions to the growth of our nation might have been acknowledged. On the other side, he paints an overly flattering portrait of Roosevelt, Pinchot and others; all of whom are the ancestors of today’s Progressives.
Not surprising really when you know who Egan works for.
The other thing I didn’t like was the book failed to put me into the catastrophe. I can remember books I’ve read about other man-made and natural disasters that made me feel as if I was there. This was cold and detached somehow. A shame really since I would love to read a better book on the subject.
Rating: 1 / 5
Timothy Egan is one of our most perceptive writers about the West. In The Good Rain, he explored the Pacific Northwest and in Lasso the Wind he wrote about issues facing the modern-day West, from water in Nevada to disputes over grazing rights. Then in 2006′s The Worst Hard Time, he explored the lives of people who remained in the Dust Bowl rather than traveling West during the great depression. Now, in Big Burn, he turns his observant eye to a force that has long shaped the West: fire. Big Burn tells a riveting story of a huge fire in August 1910 that engulfed swaths of forest in Washington, Idaho, and Montana. He complements his story of the fire with a parallel story how President Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, created national forests-against great opposition–for all Americans. First rate.
Rating: 5 / 5