Our Common Ground

Roughly a third of American territory belongs to the federal government: more than 600 million acres in every region, ranging from timbered slopes and grasslands to marshes, desert basins, and coastal edges. John Leshy, a longtime authority on how public lands are governed, goes back to the nation's earliest days to show how the decisions that produced this holding came about.

Leshy follows the gradual emergence of agreement across party lines that the federal government should hold these lands chiefly for public recreation, education, scientific study, and the protection of biological diversity and cultural and historic resources. That shared commitment still runs deep and has helped define what it means to be American. Leshy presents it as a case where the political system delivered in a period when many people doubt that government can accomplish much.

The book is intended for anyone who cares about public lands, and it arrives at a time when climate change is placing new pressures on these same landscapes.