Crossing the Next Meridian

Like no other region of the United States, the West is dominated by its landscape. The natural setting is close to the hearts of the people, and natural resources drive society intellectually and emotionally as well as economically. It is a place ripe for conflict between those who wish to reap the natural wealth of the land and those who wish to preserve the region in a pure and untrammeled state. Governing this volatile situation are what Charles F. Wilkinson calls the "lords of yesterday"--Laws, policies, and ideas that arose out of nineteenth-century westward expansion and still wield extraordinary influence. While the societal and historical contexts have changed, the regulations governing mining, ranching, forestry, and water use for the most part have remained intact. These critical issues are difficult to comprehend, and public awareness of them is astonishingly, and dangerously, low. In Crossing the Next Meridian, Wilkinson explains to a general audience some of the core problems that face the American West, both now and in the years to come. An expert on federal public lands, Native American issues, and the West's arcane water laws, Wilkinson looks at the outmoded ideas t