Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands

John D. Leshy, in conversation with William deBuys, unpacks the remarkable story of how U.S. public lands became a national legacy of conservation, education, and democracy and why understanding this matters today.

America’s public lands span over 600 million acres of forests, mountains, wetlands, deserts, and coastlines. In his recent book, Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands, legal scholar John D. Leshy traces the political, cultural, and environmental journey that led the U.S. government to claim nearly a third of the nation’s land as these “public lands.”

Leshy charts for readers how land once seen primarily as a resource to be sold, settled, or extracted gradually came to be preserved for conservation, recreation, education, and cultural heritage. Along the way, he reveals the pivotal role played by presidents, Congress, and citizen movements in shaping policies that continue to define questions political about collective responsibility we face today. Our Common Ground provides essential context for today’s struggles over climate change, biodiversity loss, and the future of conservation.
About the speakers:
John D. Leshy

John D. Leshy is Professor Emeritus at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and one of the nation’s foremost experts on public land policy. He served as Solicitor (General Counsel) of the U.S. Department of the Interior throughout the Clinton Administration, after earlier roles in the Carter Administration, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and as special counsel to the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Leshy has authored and co-authored leading casebooks on public land, resources, and water law. His recent book, Our Common Ground, A History of America's Public Lands (Yale University Press, 2022), offers the most comprehensive political history to date of America’s federal lands, from the founding era to the present.

William deBuys

William deBuys is an acclaimed writer, conservationist, and environmental historian whose work explores the intersections of land, culture, and climate. His many books include Enchantment and Exploitation, A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, and The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth’s Rarest Creatures, which was named one of the best books of 2015 by Men’s Journal and The Christian Science Monitor. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and Guggenheim Fellow, deBuys has also worked extensively in land conservation, serving as chair of the Valles Caldera Trust and co-founding the Santa Fe Conservation Trust. His most recent work, The Trail to Kanjiroba, reflects on resilience and wonder in the face of ecological crisis.

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Host or Publisher School for Advanced Research