This timely book explores the rocky trajectory of US environmental history and policy from pre-European settlement to the present. It includes underreported aspects of early history, and the first in-depth synthesis of the framing and outcomes of the groundbreaking environmental laws of the 1970s.

While effective against pollution, the new regulatory system led to economic decline, antagonism in the business community and political division. The book traces and compares US policies with more successful policies adopted by the EU in the 1990s. With an afterword reviewing the dramatic events of the second Trump administration, the book suggests future pathways for reducing polarization and promoting reform.