From the early colonial vision of forests as a wilderness to be tamed to their current status as major recreational lands and touchstones of environmental controversy, the forests of the United States have always captured the American imagination. The national forests, and the Forest Service that manages them, provide a record of the nation's evolving relationship to the natural environment. The U.S. Forest Service is the largest natural resources research organization in the world, managing 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands. The service, and much of its approach to management, grew out of a desire to manage the timber resource for human consumption. Perhaps more than any other agency, however, the Forest Service became deeply embroiled in the contentious development of U.S. environmental ...