America's Public Lands: A Sketch of Their Political History and Future Challenges

John Leshy is emeritus professor at U.C. Hastings College of the Law and former Solicitor (general counsel) of the U.S. Department of the Interior. On March 1, 2022 Yale University Press published his book Our Common Ground. It’s the first comprehensive history of America’s public lands, those managed by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management, in more than a half-century. It recounts the political decisions that led to the U.S. government stewarding this nearly one-third of the nation’s real estate primarily for conservation, recreation and other broad public purposes.