Richard Lazarus brings rich experience to this book. In the 1980s, he served as a litigator in the Environment and Natural Resources Division, and as an assistant to the solicitor general, in the Department of Justice. He has represented environmental groups and local, state, and federal governments in numerous cases before the Supreme Court. Given this extensive legal background, one might expect the book to be a dense treatise on environmental law. Yet it is written for a much broader audience, with an engaging narrative style that is accessible for those not trained as lawyers. It is also interdisciplinary, covering everything from ecological theory in the opening chapters to the historical, economic, and political contexts of environmental law in the United States. While this interdisciplinary effort is admirable, the strength of the book clearly lies in the author's legal interpretations. Political scientists will be less impressed with his discussion of topics like public opinion and interest group behavior. Yet what matters more than relatively minor shortcomings with respect to any one discipline is that Lazarus has produced an engaging and articulate book that strives to reach a broad audience beyond law schools. For this reason, The Making of Environmental Law would make a wonderful addition to upper-division and masters level environmental policy courses. It is not sufficiently theoretical for most doctoral seminars, but it certainly deserves a central location on the shelves of environmental policy scholars.

Lazarus draws on numerous theories, but does not build his work around any one theory. Nor does he test hypotheses in a social scientific way. Rather, he brings a point of view to environmental law that is informed by theory. Part I, for example, draws heavily on ecological theory to frame the purpose and challenges of environmental law. Chapters 1 and 2 are devoted to the ecological context of environmental law, while Chapter 3 analyzes how the U.S. Constitution is inconsistent with principles from ecological theory. These opening chapters provide the theoretical structure for the book, which focuses on the challenges of developing environmental law that is consistent with scientific understandings of the environment while operating within the constitutional framework. The author's normative view is also guided by ecological theory. Rather than argue, for example, that most human impacts on the environment should be impeded, he argues that “ecological transformation is both unavoidable and very often desirable” (p. 1). Strict preservationists in the tradition of John Muir, David Brower, and Dave Foreman would likely be discomforted, if not appalled, by this argument. But Lazarus is a pragmatist who builds his argument from a scientific understanding of dynamic ecosystems, the causal uncertainties associated with understanding ecosystems, and the potential risks to humans of transforming ecosystems in particular ways. Hence, environmental law is not merely a means to specific ends, such as preserving wilderness or biodiversity. Instead, environmental law should change with changing scientific knowledge, while leaning on the precautionary principle as scientists learn more about how ecosystems actually function. This places him in the tradition of Aldo Leopold, albeit with a contemporary understanding of dynamic—rather than static—ecosystems.

Lazarus then picks up the historical trail in Part II, with chapters devoted to each of the last four decades of the twentieth century. Given that he begins in the 1960s, he primarily focuses on the development of pollution laws, not resource protection laws. Yet he notes at several points how pollution laws followed from preceding resource protection laws. For the most part, the four chapters in Part II are fairly standard histories of the development of environmental law since the 1960s, with each chapter underscored by the author's faith that environmental law is becoming increasingly established, even as the antienvironmental movement has gathered steam. His positive tone might seem excessive, were it not for the book's deep history of the antienvironmental movement. Rather than starting in the early 1980s, as is standard, Lazarus traces the antienvironmental movement back to the early 1970s, pointing not only to Richard Nixon's mercurial policies regarding the environment but also to the nonprofit sector, where he notes the efforts of William Simon (Olin Foundation) and Richard Scaife (Mellon Foundation) to change public attitudes toward the environment. Throughout Part II, Lazarus carefully demonstrates the ways in which the antienvironmental movement has been successful, unsuccessful, and counterproductive, thereby lending credence to his positive view that environmental law has become increasingly solidified, even when confronted by individuals and organizations seeking to reverse the tide.

In Part III, the author takes stock of the current status and likely trajectory of environmental law in the United States, providing readers with some intriguing and fresh arguments. In Chapter 8, for example, he argues that environmental laws have become increasingly similar, as policymakers learn from the strengths and weaknesses of each law. Not only are pollution laws, such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, becoming increasingly similar, he argues, but resource protection laws and pollution laws are also borrowing from one another. While making a strong case that significant convergence is indeed occurring, his explanation for this occurrence is not entirely satisfying, because it is based on claims about lessons learned, rather than a research design that can actually demonstrate the causal significance of these lessons.

Overall, the book is strongest when it leans on the author's legal talents, and weakens as it strays into other disciplines. This is one of the hazards of interdisciplinary research. Political scientists, for example, will likely be less than satisfied with his discussion of public opinion. For example, in the introduction to the historical chapters of Part II, Lazarus writes: “The sheer depth and tenacity of the public's views, which are most often rooted in concerns about potential threats to human health and the dangers of exceeding ecological limits, explain why environmental law has been so persistent and inexorably expansive and why its repeatedly proclaimed demise has proven, on each occasion, to be premature” (p. 44). This is a strong statement, albeit one with which many might agree. The problem is that the subsequent chapters routinely repeat similar statements without supporting data or appropriate citations. Empirically, Lazarus may not be far off the mark, but methodologically, his argument about public opinion is not compelling. But this is to quibble with a book that is otherwise well argued, well written, and well researched. Readers focusing on the legal scholarship will find much to like here, particularly the breezy way he renders what might otherwise be arcane jargon into engaging narratives about the past, present, and future of environmental law.