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The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America). Allan Nevins wrote eight volumes on the Civil War, and Dumas Malone wrote five volumes on Thomas Jefferson; my plan is to do something similar for U.S. conservation history. This present volume takes up the battles to protect wild Alaska from 1879 to 1960. The third volume of the Wilderness Cycle—Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Stewart Udall, and the Modern Environmental Movement, 1961–1964—will be published in 2014, to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Similarly, The Quiet World was written with the fiftieth anniversary of the Arctic NWR (created in December 1960) in mind.

HarperCollins was brave to publish The Quiet World (a rather hefty volume, with color-photo inserts) in our rather dreary economic times. The firm’s commitment to the Wilderness Cycle—my lifework—is steadfast. The quarterback of HarperCollins is the publisher Jonathan Burnham (who embraced my multivolume concept from day one). It’s a pleasure doing business with him. The editor Tim Duggan was his usual dependable self. In a hundred different ways, he helped me whip this manuscript into shape. He is a wonderful friend whom I implicitly trust. His assistant, Allison Lorentzen, is always hardworking, diligent, and kind. She helped facilitate publication with her trademark good cheer. I’m grateful to them all. Special thanks are also in order for the associate publisher Kathy Schneider and design manager Leah Carlson-Stanisic. My old buddy Kate Blum (publicist) also deserves a nod for always organizing my visits to America’s esteemed independent bookstores. Lisa Bankoff, my ICM agent for almost twenty years, kept all the paperwork in order, helping me meet deadlines and commitments. At Rice University I teach a course every fall semester on U.S. conservation history; it’s a terrific way to stay current in environmental history. And a nod to all my North Dakota friends.

While writing The Quiet World I became engaged with numerous folks involved in the Alaska wilderness movement and U.S. conservation history. These allies include Ben Beach and Bill Meadows of The Wilderness Society (they’re the greatest); Ken Rait and Mike Matz of the Pew Environment Group/Campaign for America’s Wilderness; James N. Levitt of the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University; Tim Richardson of Wildlife Forever; Lauren Hierl and Emilie Surrusco at the Alaska Wilderness League; Bill Vanden Heuvel at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute; Cynthia Koch at the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York; Michael Adams of the Ansel Adams Trust; Leonard Vallender of Camp Fire Club of America; Brian Ross of Colorado Conservation Trust; Pam Miller of the Northern Alaska Environment Center; Michelle Bryant, Theodore Roosevelt IV, and Tweed Roosevelt of the Theodore Roosevelt Association; the entire staff of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Kansas; Lowell Baier of the Boone and Crockett Club; Ken Salazar and Tom Strickland of the U.S. Department of the Interior; and Dan Ritzman of the Sierra Club.

At U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFW) I received immeasurable help from Warren Keogh (Alaska), Mike Boylan (Alaska), Mark Madison (West Virginia), and Paul Tritaik (Florida). The raptor ecologist Joel E. Pagel of USFW was unbelievably generous in proofreading my chapter on Adolph Murie. Ever since The Wilderness Warrior was embraced by USFW, and essentially considered required reading in 2010, I’ve been asked to speak at half a dozen different national wildlife refuges. My friend Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, has brought me into the loop on efforts to have Congress designate the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain as wilderness and to create a Blue Fin National Marine Refuge off the mid-Atlantic.

A number of year-round Alaskans fact-checked chapters of The Quiet World and offered keen insights into the wilderness movement. William Reffalt, the brilliant historian of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,