I N THE LI TERATURE THE ARCHDRUID REVEALED He was a college dropout, worked in publishing, and was awarded a Bronze Star in World War II with the Tenth David Brower and American Environmentalism Mountain Division. He married, for life, Anne Hus, whom Turner By G. Tracy Mehan III describes as her husband’s “sternest critic and his staunchest defender.” She raised their four children, almost “To me, God and nature are synony- Brower as “the single most infuential alone, given Brower’s constant travels mous.” — David Brower force on environmental policy in the delivering the “sermon” on environ- United States and on the environmen- mental protection. avid Brower, the subject of tal movement” in the 20th century. David Brower’s love of the high John McPhee’s famous New Yet, Brooks, as a voting member of country and nature was genuine, Yorker essays, later published the American board of FOE, writes, spontaneous, and preceded his more Das Encounters with the Archdruid “I can still remember the sense of re- philosophical justifcations, which (1971), was the driving force in the gret as I cast my vote against David came later in his life. He loved nature creation and growth of the Sierra [Brower] as president.” in all its aspects and could even identi- Club, Friends of the Earth, and Earth Brower, it seems, did not “manage fy various species of butterfies by their Island Institute. He was an inspira- up” very well and viewed board poli- fight patterns. tion to environmentalists across the cies and budgets as mere suggestions Turner recounts the great early country, and a master of hardball and to be disregarded whenever they con- battles Brower led, most notably sophisticated advocacy in opposition ficted with his own ideas about envi- against dam building in the Dino- to dams, nuclear power plants, and ronmental advocacy. Reading Turner’s saur National Monument, the Grand economic development. He pioneered biography and McPhee’s essays called Canyon (“I hate all dams, large and many new techniques or small,” he told McPhee), tactics of agitprop: feld the establishment of Red- trips for the media, flms, David Brower: The Making of wood National Park and newspaper ads in the major the Environmental Movement. many more. Later came national and other outlets, By Tom Turner. Foreword by Bill his opposition to nuclear and, most prominently, Ex- McKibben. University of California power plants and economic hibit Format books — “cof- Press; 308 pages; $29.95. development of almost any fee table books,” a term he Inherit the Holy Mountain. By kind. Wilderness protection hated. Tese were glorious, Mark R. Stoll. Oxford University was paramount for him. over-sized publications of Press; 406 pages; $39.95. Unfortunately, Turner does stunning photographs and not describe in any depth poetic texts describing a Encounters with the Archdruid. the rationale for wilderness place of beauty and magnif- By John McPhee. Farrar, Straus protection which Brower cence for which Brower was and Giroux; 245 pages; $16. and the Sierra Club devel- seeking protection. He was oped through a number of “nature’s publicist,” accord- national conferences in the ing to Tom Turner, in his new biogra- to mind George C. Scott’s compelling early days. Given the current debate phy David Brower: Te Making of the performance in the flm Patton. He over what wilderness is or is not, as Environmental Movement. got the job done. Tere were just too well as the question of humanity’s Turner describes how Brower could many bodies left lying around. role therein, a deeper dive into that drive his colleagues crazy and was vot- Te contemporary environmental subject would have been welcome. ed of the island at the Sierra Club and movement refects both the strengths Brower’s impulses on wilderness Friends of the Earth. Many old friends and weaknesses of its founding father. protection were characteristic of what and allies would become adversaries Te young David Brower grew up in a would eventually be described as Deep out of exasperation with his rogue ten- strict Presbyterian, teetotaling house- Ecology: “I believe in wilderness for dencies, including the photographer hold. A Berkeley native, to young itself alone,” as recorded by McPhee. Ansel Adams and the Pulitzer Prize David the Sierra Nevada and Yosem- “Where wilderness is concerned, there author Wallace Stegner. ite were his home, where he became can be no compromise,” Turner quotes David B. Brooks, the frst president a world-class climber, and followed Brower as saying. “Wilderness, like life of Friends of the Earth Canada, in a the path of another lapsed Presbyte- itself, is absolute.” Tis attitude caused review of Turner’s biography, describes rian, John Muir, into the Sierra Club. even the environmentally friendly 6 |THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM I N THE LI TERATURE developer of Hilton Island, Charles John Denver, and Teodore Roosevelt Tom Turner deeply admires Brow- Fraser, and one of the participants in to this list, too. er, for whom he worked most of his discussions with Brower in McPhee’s Mark R. Stoll, author of Inherit the career, but he is an honest biographer Encounters with the Archdruid, to label Holy Mountain (the title is from the willing to explore the faws of his the environmentalist a druid. “I call Book of Isaiah) asserts that Calvinism hero. He relates, without comment, a anyone a druid who prefers trees to provided the grounding or founda- conversation the 86-year-old Brower people,” said Fraser. “A conservation- tion for environmentalism. “Presbyte- had with his son, Ken, in 1998, upon ist is too often a preservationist and a rian determination to conquer avarice winning the Asahi Glass Foundation’s preservationist is a druid.” and save society, rather than Congre- Blue Planet award with a prize of McPhee’s essays and resulting book gational reverence for the New Eng- $420,000. relate extended dialogues, in the feld, land town, gave the nation its national “Ken broached the awkward sub- between Brower, Charles Park, an conservation and preservation laws.” ject of the monetary prize and won- internationally known mineral en- Unlike Lynn White Jr., who famously dered if his father had thought of set- gineer and Stanford professor, even blamed industrialization and the rape ting any of it aside for his three grand- more of an outdoorsman than the of nature on Christianity (overlook- children’s support and education. Archdruid, as well as ing Franciscan and ‘Tere will be no education on a dead Floyd Dominy, then “There can be Benedictine tradi- planet,’ the elder Brower replied.” commissioner of the tions), Stoll believes He put all the money into a fund for U.S. Bureau of Recla- no compromise. Calvinism was a nec- Earth Island Institute. mation, the ultimate Wilderness, like life essary condition for In a remembrance written after dam builder, also itself, is absolute” environmentalism, David Brower’s death, John McPhee featured in Marc Re- given its gravitas and said, “He was feisty, heaven knew. isner’s classic Cadillac discipline. Without And arrogant, possibly. And relent- Desert (1986). Te dialogue is serious, it, “Te environmental movement is less, certainly. And above all efective robust, combative, but almost colle- weak, divided, and wandering in the — for he began his mission when gial in a grudging kind of way. Tey wilderness.” ecology connoted the root and shoot argue over important issues of nature, Nelson cites the environmental relationships of communal plants, and wilderness, and the needs and wants historian Donald Worster, who iden- he, as much or more than anyone in of human beings. tifed four ways the Calvinist tradi- the midcentury, expanded its reach Brower was the scourge of politi- tion, in its more secular incarnation, and inherent power until it became cians and the establishment. “Don’t infuenced the environmental move- the environmental movement. Oth- expect politicians, even the good ment. Tese include “moral activism,” ers in time would learn more than he ones, to do your job for you,” he “ascetic discipline,” a nonhierarchical knew and advance the argument in a once said. “Politicians are like weath- “egalitarian individualism,” including stabilizing way, but they would always er vanes. Our job is to make the wind a high regard for the “rights of nature,” be following him.” blow.” He despised Bill Clinton and and “aesthetic spirituality” in opposi- Many do indeed follow David Al Gore as sell-outs and supported tion to utilitarianism. Tis is David Brower. Many do not. Brower set Ralph Nader. Brower. the mold for confrontational envi- Brower comes from a long line of ronmental politics that continues to practicing or former Calvinists who polarize the nation. For every action were in the forefront of the Ameri- here is, however, a darker side there is a reaction. Congress has not can conservation and environmental of Calvinism, given its original reauthorized an environmental stat- movements. According to Robert H. view on the depravity of hu- ute since 1996. I often ask my law Nelson (see my review of his book Tman nature. Brower came to regard students if they thought the major Te New Holy Wars: Economic Reli- the human race as a “cancer,” writes environmental statutes, passed in the gion vs. Environmental Religion, in the McPhee. Te father of four children, 1970s, would pass the House or Sen- September/October 2011 issue), “A he once pleaded, “We all make mis- ate if they were voted on today. Invari- remarkable number of American en- takes.” Turner quotes him labeling ably, the answer is “no.” vironmental leaders, including John economic growth as “a sophisticated Muir, Rachel Carson, David Brower, device for stealing from our children.” G. Tracy Mehan III is the executive director Edward Abbey, and Dave Foreman, He was a promoter of that reliable for government affairs at the American Water were brought up in the Presbyterian pessimist and herald of the apocalypse Works Association.