Reading recommendations- historical and conservation centric

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I am looking for some recommendations on reading material. I would like to learn more about the history of conservation of the land and wildlife and would love your input. Doesn't necessarily have to be hunting related.

I'm also interested in Teddy Roosevelt as a person as well as a conservationist. Lay it on me.
 
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Western Montana
The Boone & Crockett club has some great articles and books on this as they were the founders of our North American hunting model and leaders in conservation.
 

TheTone

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A Sound County Almanac and The Big Burn are two that immediately pop into my head from a conservation and land perspective. I'm getting ready to read The Bully Pulpit which is TR forcused
 

wesfromky

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KY
Not reading, but if you can, check out any podcast with Shane Mahoney. He has been on Gritty and Randy Newberg, and maybe some others. He also has his own at Conservation Matters. Kinda crazy that a Canadian has a better grasp of America's conservation legacy than the majority of Americans.
 

bigsky2

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Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West by Michael Punke is a must read.
 

303TrophyHusband

Lil-Rokslider
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Dan Flores' American Serengeti is a great book
River of Doubt by Candice Millard is an epic Teddy book
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris is a good book about his life up to the Presidency, goes over all of his failures and successes in life and politics
American Buffalo has already been mentioned but worth mentioning again
 
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The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley. It's a straight up history book so a little dry but very in depth.

Any of the books Teddy wrote. He had an interesting and entertaining writing style. I like his description of a stick he found with a knot on the end that was perfect for thwacking a grouse from horseback :).
 

elkduds

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The West is all about water. A favorite is by Wallace Stegner, Beyond the 100th Meridian. It deals w John Wesley Powell descending the Colorado River, exploring the west for the precursor to the US Geological survey, and the politics of homesteading on native lands. Stegner is possibly the preeminent American author of the 20th century.

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner addresses the history of water law, reservoir storage and transport, Bureau of Reclamation and the politics of populating the deserts of the western US.
 
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i have this book on audio books. It is so weird because i have listened to most of Rinellas podcasts... and think he has an awesome voice for listening to.. the audio book is someone else reading and it is almost disappointing. I really wish it was him reading it.
 
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Roosevelt's "Ranchman" and "Wilderness Hunter" are both excellent IMO. Leopolds "Game Management" and "River of the Mother of God" are also great. Some of Annabel's stories have some good conservation ethic as well - at least from a 1930-50 point of view.
 

FreeRange

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Just about finished with "Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman" by Miriam Horn after hearing it discussed on the BHA podcast. It's a great read, the scope goes well beyond hunting and fishing. The first part is Montana ranchers which is most pertinent to us western big game hunters but it's the discussion on restoring the Mississippi delta that I'm finding the most interesting.

Talk about a crisis! Sure we face threats to our federal lands in the West but they have physically lost so much land into the gulf down there it's astounding. Having worked in the Gulf and on the river on tug boats myself for years I never realized the full scope of the issues they're facing with conserving the delta and it's fisheries and what a monumental task it has been trying to curb the loss and start rebuilding the delta.
 

SWOHTR

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Wilderness Warrior is a good book, but dense! You have to bear down and read it. Also, if birds aren’t your “thing,” it can be a bit of a drag (TR loved birds).


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LostArra

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River of Doubt by Candice Millard. I just started this audio book. Millard makes history interesting and it looks like this is a rough trip for Teddy.
I never really knew the vast size of Brazil and the Amazon River.
 
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