Land Use, Environment, and Social Change: The Shaping of Island County, Washington Paperback – Import, 1 June 1999

I saw all these negative reviews, and I get it. It deals quite a bit with census data, old records etc but I found a lot of White's conclusions very well put together and overall the book was interesting.

This is a hard book to get through. I had to read some chapters for an environmental studies class I was in and it about killed me. It’s dry and very boring in my opinion. Honestly I couldn’t get through it and had to hope the professor covered the important details in lecture.

White takes a refreshingly sympathetic approach to talking about human influences on the land. He talks about both American Indians and white settlers that makes them seem real and relevant to today and gives them credit for being real, thinking people. A welcome change from many books.