Once upon a time in the Midwest, almost a century ago, there was talk of creating a "Great Plains National Monument" that would preserve a slice of grasslands that once dominated that part of the nation. Today there's talk of rescuing the grasslands that once swept the horizon in a wide belt ranging from Canada to Mexico.

Leave it as It Is is the most engaging and powerful book about Western public lands that I have read in a long time. Gessner published a terrific book in 2015 titled All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West, and I find some Abbey and Stegner in this new book, both in style and content. He traveled the West in search of Abbey and Stegner in that book as he does with Teddy Roosevelt in this one. He looks at all these icons in the context of the modern West with a clear and analytical eye.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Park Service have submitted a plan to a federal judge that calls for air tour management plans to be set by May 2022 for 23 units of the National Park System.