Brooks Atkinson

This Bright Land Brooks Atkinson

In 1971, when Brooks Atkinson wrote This Bright Land, the modern conservation movement was being driven by new awareness of science's shortcomings. The early conservation movement, built on John Muir and Henry David Thoreau's appreciation of nature, was well aware of man's ability to outstrip his environment, but until the 1960s society still trusted man's ingenuity to fix any problem, even as mankind willfully depleted his natural resources.

However, Rachel Carson's 1962 publication of Silent Spring demonstrated this trust was misplaced. Her research into the harmful effect of DDT demonstrated that mankind's incautious use of science and technology could destroy the environmental base, that it was a fragile base.

It was instinctive then that a Thoreau student, such as Brooks Atkinson, would quickly understand not only the old dangers in mankind's choices, such as deforestation, but also newer problems such as hazardous chemicals, or air and water pollution, that threaten both flora and fauna in This Bright Land of America.