Evans’ grand opus of his life told through journals, speeches, essays, photos and reflections
is one glorious love story. His writing is lyrical and passionate. His insights into how to save threatened forests, rivers, and wildlands are strategic, courageous, and relevant.
—Marina Richie, Board member of Greater Hells Canyon Council and environmental writer
is one glorious love story. His writing is lyrical and passionate. His insights into how to save threatened forests, rivers, and wildlands are strategic, courageous, and relevant.
—Marina Richie, Board member of Greater Hells Canyon Council and environmental writer
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Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied
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by Brock Evans with George Venn
WINNER--
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This award-winning book highlights and documents Brock Evans’
50-year career as a leader in the environmental movement. These nearly 500 pages form a unique 80-year autobiographical collage pieced together from three main sources:
A Forest of Stories: Brock’s unknown and unpublished personal writing from boyhood diaries, letters, journals, stories from Ohio to Princeton to Bombay, from the Marines to Michigan Law School, from Ann Arbor to Montana. Later personal writing include his poem “Elegy,” Israel diaries, “Seventeenth Summer,” Cancer-Time diaries, and “Music to Play at my Funeral.” Most texts were transcribed and quoted verbatim or excerpted.
A Mountain of Documents: These were selected from thousands of Brock’s extensive professional published environmental writing, including testimony, speeches, letters, articles, memoranda, histories, essays, complete chapters. Most texts were scanned and/or excerpted. Chapters tell of winning or influencing battle after battle: North Cascades, Alpine Lakes, Horseshoe Basin, French Pete, Hells Canyon, John Day River, Sparta Mountain, Congaree.
A River of Photos: These 124 photographs—both color and black-white, both published and unpublished, personal and professional—introduce, enrich, and vary the multiple texts. Scanned and featured at the opening of all fifty chapters, they include Evans family photos, landscapes, arrests, mentors, marches, nurses, friends, mountains, wives and lovers, shots from the freighter Capto, and professional photos: Hells Canyon, Boundary Waters Wilderness, Alaska.
In Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, these sources come together to create a new whole—a rich and complex place to understand and appreciate Brock Evans’ life and work. An attorney by profession and a writer by instinct, he has previously published two books: Alpine Lakes (1971) and the award-winning Fight and Win (2015).
50-year career as a leader in the environmental movement. These nearly 500 pages form a unique 80-year autobiographical collage pieced together from three main sources:
A Forest of Stories: Brock’s unknown and unpublished personal writing from boyhood diaries, letters, journals, stories from Ohio to Princeton to Bombay, from the Marines to Michigan Law School, from Ann Arbor to Montana. Later personal writing include his poem “Elegy,” Israel diaries, “Seventeenth Summer,” Cancer-Time diaries, and “Music to Play at my Funeral.” Most texts were transcribed and quoted verbatim or excerpted.
A Mountain of Documents: These were selected from thousands of Brock’s extensive professional published environmental writing, including testimony, speeches, letters, articles, memoranda, histories, essays, complete chapters. Most texts were scanned and/or excerpted. Chapters tell of winning or influencing battle after battle: North Cascades, Alpine Lakes, Horseshoe Basin, French Pete, Hells Canyon, John Day River, Sparta Mountain, Congaree.
A River of Photos: These 124 photographs—both color and black-white, both published and unpublished, personal and professional—introduce, enrich, and vary the multiple texts. Scanned and featured at the opening of all fifty chapters, they include Evans family photos, landscapes, arrests, mentors, marches, nurses, friends, mountains, wives and lovers, shots from the freighter Capto, and professional photos: Hells Canyon, Boundary Waters Wilderness, Alaska.
In Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, these sources come together to create a new whole—a rich and complex place to understand and appreciate Brock Evans’ life and work. An attorney by profession and a writer by instinct, he has previously published two books: Alpine Lakes (1971) and the award-winning Fight and Win (2015).
Recent Reviews
In Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied: The Autobiography of an Eco-Warrior, Brock Evans recounts his many campaigns to save wilderness areas and pass environmental legislation throughout his long career in Washington State and Washington D.C. as an advocate with the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, and the Endangered Species Coalition. The title refers to his signature strategy of never giving up on an environmental cause. His story holds many valuable lessons for today’s activists in the environmental movement, but tech policy advocates can learn from it as well….
[The book] includes many personal touches—nearly 500 pages with over 100 photographs, the charming story of how Brock met his wife, the lovely and talented Georgetown professor Linda Garcia, and the moving account of his late-in-life successful battle with cancer. His reflections are challenging and inspiring, packaged in an old-fashioned, large-format volume meant for the coffee table. Today’s advocates can browse through its stories of yesterday’s environmental struggles to glean lessons for how to win tomorrow’s tech policy battles.
[The book] includes many personal touches—nearly 500 pages with over 100 photographs, the charming story of how Brock met his wife, the lovely and talented Georgetown professor Linda Garcia, and the moving account of his late-in-life successful battle with cancer. His reflections are challenging and inspiring, packaged in an old-fashioned, large-format volume meant for the coffee table. Today’s advocates can browse through its stories of yesterday’s environmental struggles to glean lessons for how to win tomorrow’s tech policy battles.
Although Brock led many efforts, he notes in one chapter that things happen, "because of love and courage, passion and commitment, because of the willingness of perfectly ordinary people to stand up and be counted when their time came." Throughout Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, he shares accounts of his own and others’ commitment and ensures that these stories will continue to inspire. We are fortunate to be able to add this book to the historical record.
If there’s one takeaway from environmental champion Brock Evans’ autobiography, it’s this: “Every place in this nation that is now safe for all of us didn’t just happen.” In that 1975 speech to activists who would save the Congaree swamp as a national park, he reminded them of their power. “It’s a force called love. Love for our earth. Love enough to fight for it. Love enough to never quit.”
Evans’ grand opus of his life told through journals, speeches, essays, photos and reflections is one glorious love story. His writing is lyrical and passionate. His insights into how to save threatened forests, rivers, and wildlands are strategic, courageous, and relevant.
Evans’ grand opus of his life told through journals, speeches, essays, photos and reflections is one glorious love story. His writing is lyrical and passionate. His insights into how to save threatened forests, rivers, and wildlands are strategic, courageous, and relevant.
—Marina Richie, Board member of Greater Hells Canyon Council and environmental writer
(Read the full review here.)
(Read the full review here.)
One of Brock’s great strengths through the decades has been not only his own love of beautiful wild places, but his ability to inspire others to fight for those wild places, even in the face of seemingly hopeless odds. “This American Earth I love is vast and beautiful,” he writes near the end of Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied. “Its wild beauty and diversity, its wilderness and quiet places, its sheer magnificence have nourished and enriched me emotionally and spiritually all my life. I wish the same for you.” His love of the American Earth and his work to protect it have benefitted us all.
In this epic tome, Brock shares a winding, blow-by-blow journey from his coming of age, his trips around the world, his loves, his career, his illness, and his eventual return to the West to be closer to the places he fought to protect. Brock’s absolute honesty and ability to spin a yarn is captured through the journal entries, reminiscences, and clippings from more than a half-century of fighting on the front lines of the conservation movement. Whether writing about meeting his wife, Linda, on a bus in Washington, D.C., or getting arrested in a suit and Marine Corps tie in defense of old-growth forest, Brock paints a picture for the reader of a life lived fully, purposefully, and artfully.
Millions of acres of older (mature and old-growth) forest in Oregon (and Washington and California) still stand today, the Snake River still runs free through Hells Canyon, the Mount Jefferson Wilderness exists and encompasses Marion Lakes, and French Pete is again safely in the Three Sisters Wilderness—all because La Grande resident Brock Evans was on the case.
Historical Reviews
“Brock Evans is in the forefront of any environmental controversy on Capitol Hill. Since 1973, the 40-year old lawyer
has been the top Washington lobbyist of the Sierra Club, a national conservation group. Evans brings to the job an undergraduate degree from Princeton, a law degree from the University of Michigan, and a background as a Seattle lawyer committed
to saving the picture-postcard grandeur of the Pacific Northwest.”
—“Seven Lobbyists With Clout,” U.S. News and World Report, 7/25/77
• • •
“…As we discussed when I met with you in May, I cannot adopt every position you advocate,
[but] I will always seriously consider your views. I hope you will continue to inform me about your major concerns.”
—President Jimmy Carter, 1/2/79
• • •
“To this year’s recipient of the John Muir Award, I would say: Brock, you have inspired us and led us…organized us and taught us.
You have helped us recognize and value that which is special within us…that which sets us apart from our enemies,
that love that is the most unstoppable of all forces. So it is from our admiration, respect, appreciation,
and our love that your family, the Sierra Club, honors you here tonight.”
—Denny Shaffer, Sierra Club, 5/2/81
• • •
“Your ability to quickly analyze different and complex political situations and provide political advice is unparalleled…
Most importantly, you always remind those of us who sometimes forget, that our final goal is…better protection of our remaining old growth forests, clean waters, pristine wilderness, endangered species, and unique ecosystems.”
—Brent Blackwelder, Marion Edey, Jim Maddy, League of Conservation Voters, 2/24/89
• • •
“Most environmental lobbyists agree that the strength of their movement resides in their volunteer activists.
“His [Evans’] emotional appeal rallies the people who do the persuading. And that is a powerful tool with Congress…”
His opponents are also mindful of Evans’ rhetorical capacity. “He’s tremendously good at imagery and can make us all cry,”
said a timber industry spokesman who has debated Evans.”
—Rochelle Stanfield, National Journal, 11/8/86
has been the top Washington lobbyist of the Sierra Club, a national conservation group. Evans brings to the job an undergraduate degree from Princeton, a law degree from the University of Michigan, and a background as a Seattle lawyer committed
to saving the picture-postcard grandeur of the Pacific Northwest.”
—“Seven Lobbyists With Clout,” U.S. News and World Report, 7/25/77
• • •
“…As we discussed when I met with you in May, I cannot adopt every position you advocate,
[but] I will always seriously consider your views. I hope you will continue to inform me about your major concerns.”
—President Jimmy Carter, 1/2/79
• • •
“To this year’s recipient of the John Muir Award, I would say: Brock, you have inspired us and led us…organized us and taught us.
You have helped us recognize and value that which is special within us…that which sets us apart from our enemies,
that love that is the most unstoppable of all forces. So it is from our admiration, respect, appreciation,
and our love that your family, the Sierra Club, honors you here tonight.”
—Denny Shaffer, Sierra Club, 5/2/81
• • •
“Your ability to quickly analyze different and complex political situations and provide political advice is unparalleled…
Most importantly, you always remind those of us who sometimes forget, that our final goal is…better protection of our remaining old growth forests, clean waters, pristine wilderness, endangered species, and unique ecosystems.”
—Brent Blackwelder, Marion Edey, Jim Maddy, League of Conservation Voters, 2/24/89
• • •
“Most environmental lobbyists agree that the strength of their movement resides in their volunteer activists.
“His [Evans’] emotional appeal rallies the people who do the persuading. And that is a powerful tool with Congress…”
His opponents are also mindful of Evans’ rhetorical capacity. “He’s tremendously good at imagery and can make us all cry,”
said a timber industry spokesman who has debated Evans.”
—Rochelle Stanfield, National Journal, 11/8/86
About the Author
The award-winning book, Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, highlights and documents Brock Evans’ 50-year career as a leader in the environmental movement. Told in rich and diverse prose enriched by over 100 photographs, his story takes the reader from Ohio to Princeton to Bombay, from the Marines to Michigan Law School, from Ann Arbor to Montana. There he first fell in love with the northern Rockies, then moved west to the ancient forests, wilderness, and wild rivers of the Cascades. In that green threatened paradise, he found his lifelong passion to save the earth, to fight for it with any available tools.
As a regional then national lobbyist for Sierra Club and Audubon, his stories dramatize fifty years of leading and winning environmental battles across the United States. For this advocacy he’s received over 20 of the most prestigious environmental awards.
An attorney by profession and a writer by instinct, he has published two books: Alpine Lakes (1971) and the award-winning Fight and Win (2015). In Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, readers will discover a rare anthology-like sample of his diverse prose: personal narratives, diaries, testimony, essays, columns, articles, legal briefs, book chapters, news stories, legislation, memoranda,
and letters.
As a regional then national lobbyist for Sierra Club and Audubon, his stories dramatize fifty years of leading and winning environmental battles across the United States. For this advocacy he’s received over 20 of the most prestigious environmental awards.
An attorney by profession and a writer by instinct, he has published two books: Alpine Lakes (1971) and the award-winning Fight and Win (2015). In Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, readers will discover a rare anthology-like sample of his diverse prose: personal narratives, diaries, testimony, essays, columns, articles, legal briefs, book chapters, news stories, legislation, memoranda,
and letters.