Will I love To Save the Land and People?

I loved this book because it showed me the importance of grassroots organizing. The people in Appalachia were horrified by what strip mining was doing to their farms and communities, but couldn’t get help from their elected officials.

Even the big environmental interest groups were more interested in getting an agreement than in stopping the destruction of the land. They got some of what they wanted, but are still fighting to stop strip mining.

Chad Montrie has written a series of books exploring the unsung corners of environmentalism. Actually, that’s not fair. He’s explored the center of environmentalism – the activism of the poor, the working class, the average people who have fought to protect their families, their homes, their health. In To Save the Land and People, Montrie takes us into the hollows of Appalachia, where disempowered people did everything they could – even to the point of destroying bulldozers and threatening violence – to protect their communities. Montrie’s work reminds us of the struggles in Cleveland’s disempowered neighborhoods, where efforts to… show more.