California Desert Miracle: The Fight for Desert Parks and Wilderness (Sunbelt Natural History Guides)
... This twenty-seven year struggle to achieve passage of the California Deseert Protection Act of 1994 is the crux of Frank Wheat's book. ...This is an epic with many heroes, and Wheat's work is a chronicle of their efforts... ...One might think this account of the long campaign for California desert protection would make for tedious reading.  Not so. Frank Wheat writes well and weaves an insightful and fascinating narrative of the 27-year struggle.  Southern California's premier historian Doyce Nunis calls this "environmental history at its superbly crafted best. California Desert Miracle is a rich treat for those of us who treasure the state's unspoiled wildlands. --John Robinson, Fullerton, CACalifornia Desert Miracle is one of those books that come along perhaps once in a decade.  The reason is simple: reading it leaves a memorable impression.  The gripping narrative details the endless difficulties, disappointments, and twists encountered by a dedicated group of individuals who fought valiantly to gain federal protection for southern California's threatened desert lands.  Here is environmental history at its superbly crafted best.  The narrative sparkles from the outset.  It s a book that not only informs, it entertains.  Wheat's book is destined to become a "classic" n desert lore literature.   --Doyce D. Nunis, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, USCCalifornia Desert Miracle... will serve as an instructive and inspiring account for anyone interested in helping to carry out any major conservation campaign involving public education and promotion of legislation.... Already we are engaged in a major legislative campaign to preserve the wildlands of Utah and we hear rumblings of wilderness to be proposed in Nevada.  Then there will be New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming.... Wheat's book is timely indeed."  --Edgar Wayburn, Five-time Past-president of the Sierra ClubFrank Wheat proves that lawyers really can write - lucidly, from the inside, and, in this case, with high drama.  This marvelous California saga will be the standard navigator forever through the shoals of conservation. --Neil Morgan, Senior Columnist & Associate Editor, San Diego Union TribuneThe California Desert Protection Act, signed into law by President Clinton on October 31, 1994, traces its roots nearly 30 years earlier to the appointment of a foresighted and forceful California State Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Russ Penny.  The history of the Act is tracked in meticulous detail by Wheat, a desert devotee lawyer, whose account of the numerous opponents and proponents (including five desert tortoise "lobbyists" who traversed Congressional desks) provides the needed vitality to a convoluted narrative. Considerable space is devoted to the arcane procedures of Congress, leaving the politically inexperienced reader with a sense of despair about the legislative process.  A brief chronology enables one to keep the story in perspective, half-tone illustrations of key players add reality, and the basic provisions of the Act, along with footnotes, a glossary, and brief description of the key players, help keep perspective in the complexities in the evolution of the final legislation.  The author wisely ends with a cautionary note on the need for eternal vigilance against erosion of the Act.  General readers; graduates through professionals.  --E.J. Kormandy, emeritus, University of West Los Angeles, Choice Magazine, May 1999Wheat has taken a seemingly simple story, and translated it into a ballad of democracy vibrant enough to stir Walt Whitman's blood.  If you have ever wondered why you should bother to vote, or have concluded that democracy simply doesn't work well enough to protect our environment for our families and our future, just spend a few hours with California Desert Miracle.  --Carl Pope, President of the Sierra Club