Battleground Alaska

If the interior lower-forty-eight U.S. West is known for its fierce antistatist anger at the U.S. federal government, Alaska’s anger is by comparison virulent, argues Stephen Haycox in this vivid synthesis of Alaskan battles over public lands since statehood (p. 183). That antistatism is rooted not in a dictatorial federal state’s conspiracy to deny Alaskans economic growth—as many non-native Alaskans fervently believe—but rather in the physical realities of economic development in Alaska and the complex politics of public lands in the post – World War II era. In five concise and informative chapters, framed by two contextual chapters, Haycox presents four key battles in the running war of economic development vs. environmental stewardship on Alaskan public lands, from the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to timber conflicts in the Tongass National Forest and the Pebble Mine debate. Drawing from a wealth of recent scholarship on each of the individual battles, as well as key primary sources, Haycox forges a direct, clear, readable narrative that demonstrates Alaska’s centrality to the broader national history of public lands. Battleground Alaska might have delved further into other historical and cultural sources of rural western antistatism, such as religion, survivalist self-sufficiency, and libertarianism broadly defined, but admittedly that would have made for a different book.

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