Social commentator and preeminent western historian Bernard DeVoto vigorously defended public lands in the West against commercial interests. By the time of his death in 1955, DeVoto had published criticism, history, and fiction. He had won both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes. But his most passionate writing—at once incisive and eloquent—advocated conservation of America’s prairies, rangeland, forests, mountains, canyons, and deserts.

DeVoto’s West: History, Conservation, and the Public Good showcases the complexity, depth, and breadth of DeVoto’s thinking. Edward K. Muller introduces these essays (many of which originally appeared in the renowned Harper’s column The Easy Chair) that persuasively advocate stewardship of public land. DeVoto addressed the plundering of resources by absentee eastern corporations, westerners’ conflicted relationship with the forces of exploitation, and the degradation of the national parks.

DeVoto’s West collects for the first time the best of DeVoto’s conservation pieces. It will introduce to a new generation prose that has retained its relevance and remains a remarkably current and timely argument for protecting public lands.