The Genius of Earth Day
How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation
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ISBN10: 0865477744
ISBN13: 9780865477742
Trade Paperback
368 Pages
$20.00
CA$24.50
The first Earth Day is the most famous little-known event in modern American history. Because we still pay ritual homage to the planet every April 22, everyone knows something about Earth Day. Some people may also know that Earth Day 1970 made the environmental movement a major force in American political life. But no one has told the whole story before.
The story of the first Earth Day is inspiring: it had a power, a freshness, and a seriousness of purpose that are difficult to imagine today. Earth Day 1970 created an entire green generation. Thousands of Earth Day organizers and participants decided to devote their lives to the environmental cause. Earth Day 1970 helped to build a lasting eco-infrastructure—lobbying organizations, environmental beats at newspapers, environmental-studies programs, ecology sections in bookstores, community ecology centers.
In The Genius of Earth Day, the prizewinning historian Adam Rome offers a compelling account of the rise of the environmental movement. Drawing on his experience as a journalist as well as his expertise as a scholar, he explains why the first Earth Day was so powerful, bringing one of the greatest political events of the twentieth century to life.
Reviews
Praise for The Genius of Earth Day
"Adam Rome's genial new book, The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-in Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation (Hill & Wang), brings to life another era. We're as distant from Earth Day as the Battle of Gettysburg was from James Monroe's reëlection, and Rome evokes a United States that feels, politically, like a foreign country."—Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker
"This is not just history—it's a highly useful guidebook for anyone trying now to summon the same passion and build the same movement that shook up the world in 1970."—Bill McKibben, author of Home and Away: Jail Cells, Beehives, and the Fight for a Working Planet
"Adam Rome has written the first serious history of the largest demonstration in American history—and it is likely to be the definitive one. His wise and captivating narrative explains the roots and remarkable success of Earth Day and should be required reading for anyone who struggles to prevent climate change today."—Michael Kazin, author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation
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BOOK EXCERPTS
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1 The Prehistory of Earth Day
Earth Day was not the work of a well-established movement. Indeed, commentators did not begin to speak about "the environmental movement" until the run-up to Earth Day. Though many Americans had sought...
MEDIA
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Adam Rome and “The Genius of Earth Day” on WHYY's Radio Times
In this hour of Radio Times, Marty talks with author Adam Rome about his new book on the history of Earth Day, its key organizers, and how its legacy can be seen today in the form of greater environmental consciousness and activism throughout the country.
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