DURHAM, N.C. – Char Miller, one of the nation’s leading experts on the politics and history of federal land management, will discuss, “Will the U.S. Forest Service Celebrate a Bicentennial?” at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, at 91.

The 4:30 p.m. lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at White Lecture Hall on 91’s East Campus. A reception will follow in the East Duke Parlors. 

The talk is sponsored by the Forest History Society, Duke’s Department of History and the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences as part of the Lynn W. Day Distinguished Lectureship in Forest and Conservation History.

Miller is professor of history and director of urban studies at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a Senior Fellow of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation in Washington, D.C.  He traveled the nation speaking about the Forest Service’s history during its centennial in 2005, and is the author of Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, which won the 2002 Independent Publishers Association Biography Prize. 

The Forest History Society will publish Miller’s forthcoming book, Ground Work: Conservation in American Environmental Culture, in 2007.

In his talk at Duke, Miller will examine the key administrative, environmental, legal and political challenges the U.S. Forest Service has confronted during its 101-year history, and those the agency will likely face during the coming century.  Conflicts between state and federal rights are complicating forest management decisions, he will explain, and the forests themselves are now expected to serve an increasingly broad range of purposes, including recreation, timber production, grazing, carbon sequestration, conservation and watershed protection.    

Parking for the lecture is available on East Campus Quad.

For more information, contact Steven Anderson at the Forest History Society at (919) 682-9319, or visit the Forest History Society’s Web site at .