Books We
Recommend
In the Presence
of Our Enemies
Ellen McClay
An exposé on the United Nation’s UNESCO organization.
(AuthorHouse 2006)
Economic Freedom of the World
- 2003 Annual Report,
James Gwartney & Robert Lawson, with Neil Emerick, Frazer
Institute, Van Couver, Canada (2003)
Bernard H. Siegan,
Property Rights: From Magna Carta to the Fourteenth Amendment
(Social Philosophy & Policy Center/Transaction Publishers,
2002) Immediately acclaimed analysis of the importance of property
rights in the Anglo-American constitutional tradition. Full
Synopsis
Ordering
Information
Robert H. Nelson, A Burning
Issue-A Case for Abolishing the U.S. Forest Service (Rowman
& Littlefield, 2000)
Examines the history of government management of National Forests,
from the near-century of bureaucratic incompetence to the present-day
philosophy of “management” toward imagined
pre-colonial conditions, leading to catastrophic wildfires.
James Bovard, Feeling
Your Pain (St. Martin’s Press, 2000)
The explosion and abuse of government power in the Clinton-Gore
years
Ron Arnold, Undue
Influence (Free Enterprise Press, Bellevue, Washington,
1999). Arnold reveals how the wealthy foundations, grant-driven
environmental groups, and zealous bureaucrats are working to
dismantle roads, dams, logging, mining, ranching, farming, and
fishing.
(James Bovard,
Freedom in Chains (St. Martin’s Press, New York,
1999)
“James Bovard has become the roving inspector general
of the modern state...” - The Wall Street Journal
Defending Illusions - Federal
Protection of Ecosystems
By Allan K. Fitzsimmons
(1999)
3192 Rivanna Court
Woodbridge, VA 22192
(703) 491-5615
This book examines the science, philosophy, and law of ecosystems
management and shows how
efforts to make federal protection of ecosystems the centerpiece
of national environmental policy are driven by religious veneration
of Mother Earth wrapped in a veil of science.
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
The Noblest
Triumph - Private Property and Prosperity Through the Ages - By Tom Bethell (St. Martin’s,
1998)
Traces private property through history and shows that for almost
two centuries economists
increasingly ignored private property while approving socialism.
Demonstrates the triumph of private property in promoting prosperity,
and compares experiences throughout the world.
The Property
Owner’s Experience-New
York’s Arbitrary and Excessive Environmental Regulation
of Private Land and Resources: Observations and Recommendations
for Reform - by
Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA 1998)
Publication
Order Form
Bernard H. Siegan,
Property and Freedom—The Constitution, The Courts,
and land-Use Regulation (Transaction Publishers,
New Brunswick 1997)
Ron Arnold, EcoTerror:
The Violent Agenda to Save Nature—The World of the Unabomber
(free Enterprise Press, Bellevue, Washington, 1997)
Bernard H. Siegan,
Property and Freedom—The Constitution, The Courts,
and Land-Use Regulation (Transaction Publishers, New
Brunswick 1997)
The APA Shell
Game: How New York’s
Adirondack Park Agency is Becoming the World’s Foremost
Environmental Snoop
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, 1994)
This unique report about the power of GIS for enforcement of
land-use regulations resulted from a study of the APA’s
internal documents behind its annual financial reports. LaGrasse
outlines the many different data bases that are being put into
the APA’s GIS (geographic information systems), which is
a computerized system of overlays of digitalized maps.
Publication
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James Bovard, Lost
Rights (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1994)
James Bovard, Lost
Rights
(St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1994)
Bernard H. Siegan,
Land Use Without Zoning - (Bartholdi & Lazarus,
Houston, 1993)
Michael S. Greve and
Fred L. Smith, Jr., Environmental Politics: Public
Costs, Private Rewards (Praeger, New York, 1992). See
especially Chapter 6, “Private Enforcement, Private Rewards:
How Environmental Citizen Suits Became an Entitlement Program,”
by Michael S. Greve.
The Asbestos Racket:An Environmental
Parable
Michael J. Bennett
Free Enterprise Press (1991)
Bellevue, Washington
Richard A. Epstein,
Takings—Private Property and the Power of Eminent
Domain (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1985)
Saul Alinsky, Rules
for Radicals (latest ed. Random House, New York,
1971). After two generations. Alinksy’s book is still considered
the pinnacle of insight and advice for grassroots organizing.
Additional Resources
Positions on Property: From 1994 through 2000,
PRFA analyzed and exposed land-use controls, pre-zoning, and
acquisition plans in New York State; the capacity for environmental
goals to control land without limitation; the National Park Service’s
land-use controls and acquisition agendas; UNESCO Biosphere Reserves;
the power of the land trusts; the Farmer’s Home Administration
locking up land which could be used for agriculture; the land
acquisition methods of the U. S. Forest Service in New York’s
Finger Lakes; the Forest Legacy and Northern Forest Lands program;
the National and American Heritage Areas; American Heritage Rivers
Initiative; Zoning and Building Codes; and Conservation Easements.
Publication Order Form
Paragon Powerhouse, monthly newsletter published
by The Paragon Foundation, Inc.
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In-Depth Information
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 “Planning
- Good or Bad” - Book Review by Nathaniel R. Dickinson
(Property Rights Foundation of America®, April 2008)
The Best-Laid Plans, How Government Planning Harms Your Quality
of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future, By Randal O’Toole
(Cato Institute, 2007)
In this surprising review of a popular conservative title,
rather than focus on the issues of land use planning, urban renewal,
smart growth and the like, where the author explores the need
to reduce government’s excessive control over people
and the diminishment of their freedom, our reviewer analyzes
the author’s approach to planning with respect to
wildlife issues, where more, rather than less, planning is needed.
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 “The Yukon Cleansing”
- Book Review: A Land Gone Lonesome, By Dan O’Neill,
Counterpoint, a Member of Perseus Books Group, 2006
Review by Susan Allen, Reprinted from the New York Property
Rights Clearinghouse (Vol. 11, No. 3, Summer 2007, PRFA)
After the ANILCA settlement divided Alaska’s wild
country among native, state and federal holdings, the National
Park Service controlled vast federal landholdings. The Park Service
told the people living on the wild lands that they could go on
with their accustomed “subsistence lifestyle”
as hunters, trappers, placer miners, and the like, but the agency
cut off access and instituted regulations and an insurmountable
permit application process, which made it impossible for the
people to live in the wilds anymore. Old cabins were burned,
only to be rebuilt by the Park Service as historic reconstructions.
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- “The
Dangerous Craze of Environmental Irrationality” - Book
Review by Nathaniel R. Dickinson (PRFA, Mar. 27, 2007)
Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health,
By John Berlau, (Nelson Current, 2006)
The Greens constantly play on the emotions of gullible people
to promote their agenda. But the thing to fear is not human activity,
but the focus by the Greens on restoring the planet to untrammeled
nature, a focus whereby they obstruct worthwhile and life-saving
progress.
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- “Warriors
for Our Time” - Book review by
Nathaniel R. Dickinson, Property Rights Foundation of America,
March 2007
Review of Warriors for the West by William Perry Pendley
(Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2006)
Perry Pendley, president and chief legal officer of Mountain
States Legal Foundation, chronicles the heroic battles of westerners
for freedom and land rights in the face of bureaucrats, environmental
groups and judges who are destroying the rights to land, the
viability of local communities, and freedom itself.
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- “Inalienable
Private Property Rights Being Revoked” - Book Review
by Nathaniel R. Dickinson, PRFA, October 17, 2006)
During the Twentieth Century, private property rights, the
cornerstone of freedom, were greatly diminished in exchange for
government power under environmental law, regulatory takings,
rent control, scenic regulations, historic preservation, architectural
review, and eminent domain abuse. The radical left is winning.
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- “The
Truth About Environmentalism” - Book Review by Nathaniel
R. Dickinson, PRFA, August 2006
The Green Wave — Environmentalism and Its Consequences,
by Bonner Cohen, Capitol Research Center, 2006
Environmentalists have a stranglehold and, if things continue
the way they are going, they will prevail and destroy traditional
society.
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- “Fact,
Fiction, and Opinion” - Book Review by Nathaniel R.
Dickinson (PRFA, July 2006)
The Essential Grizzly by Doug and Andrea Peacock (Lyons
Press, 2006)
Presumptions cripple this book on grizzlies. A blend of facts
and fiction, politics and advocacy, this compendium of essays
on grizzlies and the authors’ opinions on their importance
to man wastes an opportunity to compile reams of knowledge into
a credible work.
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- “Misconceptions
Make this Book Beastly” - Book Review by
Nathaniel R. Dickinson, (PRFA, April 11, 2006)
The Beast in the Garden, David Baron, W. W. Norton and
Company, 2004
Killings of human beings by cougars in areas near built-up
suburbs have led Baron to advocate for action by public agencies
and private groups to preserve more open space, rather than identify
problems and needs. In addition to accounts of encounters with
cougars, Baron’s writing includes a hodgepodge ranging
from a study of deep-seated fear of cats to discourses on multiculturalism,
feminism, environmentalism and Native Americanism. The strict
preservationist stance displays a lack of appreciation of the
natural world.
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 “How
Subsidized Housing Keeps the Poor Down” Book review
by Carol W. LaGrasse, April 9, 2005
Review of: America’s Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake-The
Failure of American Housing Policy By Howard Husock (Ivan
R. Dee, Chicago 2003)
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- “The
Rampant Injustice of Eminent Domain” - By Nate Dickinson
(PRFA, November 14, 2004)
Review of Abuse of Power—How the Government Misuses Eminent
Domain by Steven Greenhut (Seven Locks Press 2004)
Master planners are using “blight”
declarations and urban redevelopment to sack neighborhoods in
a nationwide nightmare of eminent domain. People are fighting
back to protect their private property rights.
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- “Dispossessed”
- By Susan Allen (PRFA, September 2004)
Book Reviews: Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods
Hurts America and What We Can Do About It by Dr. Mindy Thompson
Fullilove and Mists of the Couchsacrage: Rescue from State
Land by Alden L. Dumas
Dr. Mindy Fullilove’s Root Shock captures
the mid-20th-century horror of loss of home in her documentation
of urban renewal. The story Mists of the Couchsacrage
by Alden L. Dumas is haunted by the banished hunting camps destroyed
by New York State’s insatiable lust for wilderness,
which it creates by eliminating the rural culture.
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- “A Professional
and Intellectual Journey” - Book Review by Nate Dickinson
(PRFA, April 13, 2004)
A review of Give Me a Break — How I Exposed Hucksters,
Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal
Media by John Stossel, Harper Collins, 2004
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- “Foul
Ball - My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark”
- by Jim Bouton (Bulldog Publishing 2003), Reviewed by Nathaniel
R. Dickinson (PRFA, February 6, 2004)
The great New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton led a battle
to save treasured Wahconah Park, in Pittsfield, Mass., one of
the oldest in America, having hosted professional baseball since
1892. Bouton narrates how he brought the community together against
a new government-financed stadium, battling the City Council,
which could wield eminent domain. Dickinson draws a parallel
to the Nets stadium proposed for Brooklyn, N.Y.
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- The Power
Broker — Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert
A. Caro. Book Review - by Susan Allen, Editor and Publisher
of the Adirondack Park Agency Reporter (PRFA, February
2004)
Surveying all from above, Robert Moses wielded eminent domain
to achieve his grand plans, wiping out New York neighborhoods
in his way. He invented the modern “power authority,”
with its legacy of “public benefit corporations”
having the force of government but virtually immune from citizen
supervision.
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- “A
Novice’s Reaction to a Smart Growth Discussion”
- By Nate Dickinson, Wildlife Biologist (PRFA, December 12, 2003
Review of “Outsmarting Smart Growth - Population
Growth, Immigration, and the Problem of Sprawl” by
Beck, Kolankiewicz, and Camarota (Center for Immigration Studies,
2003). Dickinson questions the assumptions underlying the report,
and asks whether planners are interested in changing the complexion
of a free society. Statistics for agricultural acreage show that
the U.S. A. is getting wilder, contrary to the report’s
drift. He states that the report’s immigration statistics
prove the need to rethink immigration policy. Illegal immigration
must be simply halted.
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- “An
Attempted Perspective - Good Faith Fails to Bridge the Adirondack
Gap” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, Dec. 3, 2002)
A review of the issues, accuracy and fairness in Barbara McMartin’s
new book, Perspectives on the Adirondacks - A Thirty-year
Struggle by People Protecting Their Treasure (Syracuse University
Press, 2002). In her book packed with information of varying
accuracy about the opposing sides in the Adirondack struggle,
McMartin sympathetically seeks harmony through utopian planning
while increasing the protection of nature. But she fails to understand
the human needs for private property rights and equal protection
under the law.
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