The Wild East: A Biography of the Great Smoky Mountains - Margaret Lynn Brown

The Wild East explores the social, political, and environmental changes in the Great Smoky Mountains during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. n nThe classic environmental history of the Great Smoky Mountains, updated with a view from the twenty-first century n n n nThe Wild East explores n the social, political, and environmental changes in the Great Smoky nMountains during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although this nnational park is most often portrayed as a triumph of wilderness npreservation, Margaret Lynn Brown concludes that the largest forested nregion in the eastern United States is actually a re-created nwilderness--a product of restoration and even manipulation of the land. n n n nSeveral n hundred years before white settlement, Cherokees farmed and hunted this n land. Between 1910 and 1920, corporate lumbermen built railroads into nthe region's most remote watersheds and removed more than 60 percent of nthe old-growth forest. Despite this level of human impact, those who npromoted the establishment of a national park in 1934 represented the nland as an untouched wilderness and described the people living there as n pioneers. n n n nToward the end of the twentieth century, Brown n writes, the Smokies faced the consequences of decades of management ndecisions that fluctuated between promoting human tourism and ensuring nenvironmental preservation. Nearly 25 years after the book's first npublication, this revised edition discusses current research, citizen nscience initiatives, and land management practices that are restoring nnative plants and wildlife populations in the twenty-first century. nMargaret Lynn Brown emphasizes the extraordinary treasure that is the nGreat Smoky Mountains and the importance of continuing to invest in the npark's protection for years to come. n