Theodore Steinberg
Slide Mountain
Or, The Folly of Owning Nature
$26.95, £18.95 paperback
9780520207097
Available Now
The drive to own the natural world in twentieth-century America seems virtually limitless. Signs of this national penchant for possessing nature are everywhere—from suburban picket fences to elaborate schemes to own underground water, clouds, even the ocean floor.
Yet, as Theodore Steinberg demonstrates in this compelling, witty look at Americans' attempts to master the environment, nature continually turns these efforts into folly. In a rich, narrative style recalling the work of John McPhee, Steinberg tours America to explore some of the more unusual dilemmas that have arisen in our struggle to possess nature.
Beginning along the Missouri River, Steinberg recounts the battle for three thousand acres of land the river carved from a Nebraska Indian reservation and deposited in Iowa. Then he travels to Louisiana, where an army of lawyers butted heads over whether Six Mile Lake was actually a lake or a stream. He continues to Arizona to investigate who owned the underground, then to Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Mountains to see who claimed the clouds. He ends in crowded New York City with Donald Trump's struggle for air rights.
Americans' obsession with owning nature was immortalized by Mark Twain in the tale of Slide Mountain, where a landslide-prone Nevada peak turned the American dream of real estate into dust. In relating these modern-day "Slide Mountain" stories, Steinberg illuminates what it means to live in a culture of property where everything must have an owner.
Yet, as Theodore Steinberg demonstrates in this compelling, witty look at Americans' attempts to master the environment, nature continually turns these efforts into folly. In a rich, narrative style recalling the work of John McPhee, Steinberg tours America to explore some of the more unusual dilemmas that have arisen in our struggle to possess nature.
Beginning along the Missouri River, Steinberg recounts the battle for three thousand acres of land the river carved from a Nebraska Indian reservation and deposited in Iowa. Then he travels to Louisiana, where an army of lawyers butted heads over whether Six Mile Lake was actually a lake or a stream. He continues to Arizona to investigate who owned the underground, then to Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Mountains to see who claimed the clouds. He ends in crowded New York City with Donald Trump's struggle for air rights.
Americans' obsession with owning nature was immortalized by Mark Twain in the tale of Slide Mountain, where a landslide-prone Nevada peak turned the American dream of real estate into dust. In relating these modern-day "Slide Mountain" stories, Steinberg illuminates what it means to live in a culture of property where everything must have an owner.
"Steinberg acquaints readers with 20th-century Americans' attempts to own nature. Using an episodic approach, he examines legal cases in which the natural world has been transformed into property. . . . This easily readable text is free of jargon."—Library Journal
"Steinberg shows the absurd extremes people will take their desires to own property. . . . Provides thought-provoking glimpses into American culture and beliefs."—Booklist
"A guidebook to some of the strange places that our passion for ownership can take us to. It is an essay in legal history and cultural commentary, done with a very agreeable lightness of touch. . . . Clever and amusing, and written with the sort of high spirits that American professors commonly have beaten out of them in graduate school."—Alan Ryan, Times Literary Supplement
"Slide Mountain is a rock that needs to be thrown at a time when property rights advocates are building a sprawl of glass houses."—Timothy Egan, New York Times Book Review
"The ludicrous if inevitable attempt to convert all of nature into private property is the subject of this astute and clearly written book."—Boston Globe
"Fascinating."—New York Times Book Review
"This often humorous and highly readable book is fascinating and provocative. . . . Steinberg's book treats a central issue—if not the central issue—in the relationship between humans and nature in such a unique and graphic way that it should be especially valuable in the classroom. Such a thought-provoking study deserves widespread attention."—American Historical Review
"Steinberg teases from the parched earth of property law a nifty morality tale about the notion of "owning" nature. . . . Steinberg gives bite that old refrain—the rich get richer, the poor poorer, and the courts smooth the way."—Kirkus Review
"Steinberg acquaints readers with 20th-century Americans' attempts to own nature. Using an episodic approach, he examines legal cases in which the natural world has been transformed into property. . . . This easily readable text is free of jargon."—Library Journal
"Steinberg shows the absurd extremes people will take their desires to own property. . . . Provides thought-provoking glimpses into American culture and beliefs."—Booklist
"A guidebook to some of the strange places that our passion for ownership can take us to. It is an essay in legal history and cultural commentary, done with a very agreeable lightness of touch. . . . Clever and amusing, and written with the sort of high spirits that American professors commonly have beaten out of them in graduate school."—Alan Ryan, Times Literary Supplement
"Slide Mountain is a rock that needs to be thrown at a time when property rights advocates are building a sprawl of glass houses."—Timothy Egan, New York Times Book Review
"The ludicrous if inevitable attempt to convert all of nature into private property is the subject of this astute and clearly written book."—Boston Globe
"Fascinating."—New York Times Book Review
"This often humorous and highly readable book is fascinating and provocative. . . . Steinberg's book treats a central issue—if not the central issue—in the relationship between humans and nature in such a unique and graphic way that it should be especially valuable in the classroom. Such a thought-provoking study deserves widespread attention."—American Historical Review
"Steinberg teases from the parched earth of property law a nifty morality tale about the notion of "owning" nature. . . . Steinberg gives bite that old refrain—the rich get richer, the poor poorer, and the courts smooth the way."—Kirkus Review
"Steinberg acquaints readers with 20th-century Americans' attempts to own nature. Using an episodic approach, he examines legal cases in which the natural world has been transformed into property. . . . This easily readable text is free of jargon."—Library Journal
"A beautifully written work. . . . A tremendously fresh assessment of not only the perils of owning nature, but an entire realm of public and private thoughts, writings, laws, and legislation having to do with nature, property, conservation, and culture."—William Deverell, author of Railroad Crossings
Preface, by Senator Dan McCorquodale
Fast Fish in America: An Introduction
1. Blackbird's Ghost: Real Estate and Other Fantasies
2. Identity Crisis in Bayou Country
3. Notes from Underground: The Private Life of Water
4. Cloudbusting in Fulton County
5. Three-D Deeds: The Rise of Air Rights in New York
6. Paper Moon: A Conclusion
Fast Fish in America: An Introduction
1. Blackbird's Ghost: Real Estate and Other Fantasies
2. Identity Crisis in Bayou Country
3. Notes from Underground: The Private Life of Water
4. Cloudbusting in Fulton County
5. Three-D Deeds: The Rise of Air Rights in New York
6. Paper Moon: A Conclusion
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