DEWEY, Scott Hamilton 1968-

PERSONAL: Born April 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Donald O'Dell (a professor and university administrator) and Charlotte (a property manager; maiden name, Neuber) Dewey. Ethnicity: "Caucasian-German/British." Education: University of Houston, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1989; Rice University, M.A., 1994, Ph.D., 1997; University of California—Los Angeles, J.D., 2003. Politics: "Independent/proenvironmental." Religion: "Well-behaved agnostic." Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, pets, playing classical piano, eclectic music.

ADDRESSES: Home—3891 Hampstead Rd., La Cañada, CA 91011-3961. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Rice University, Houston, TX, lecturer, between 1989 and 1996; California State University—Los Angeles, Los Angeles, adjunct professor, 1994-2000; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, summer clerk in Office of the General Counsel, 2002; Chambers of Judge Manella, Los Angeles, judicial extern, 2002. Consultant on environmental certification programs; activist for environmental and civic improvement organizations.

MEMBER: Phi Kappa Phi.

WRITINGS:

Don't Breathe the Air: Air Pollution and U.S. Environmental Politics, 1945-1970, Texas A & M University Press (College Station, TX), 2000.

Contributor to periodicals, including Journal of Southern History, Southern California Quarterly, and Environmental History.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Irreconciliable Differences, a book focusing on uncertainty regarding the joinder of codefendants in federal criminal case law; research on the origins of environmental law.

SIDELIGHTS: Scott Hamilton Dewey told CA: "My primary motivation in writing has been to correct misconceptions in the historical record regarding the nature of environmental activism and environmental policy after World War II. Whether due to historical unawareness, forgetfulness, or an anti-environmental political agenda, environmentalists were mischaracterized as all privileged elitists by many writers and commentators during the 1980s and 1990s. So I revealed the broad class, gender, and ethnic diversity of the movement, reminding readers that most environmentalists have always been normal, middle-class and working-class citizens fighting to protect their neighborhoods from pollution and other serious threats.

"I was inspired to write about all this because I had seen and known people like these when I was growing up. I knew the real story as the pundits did not. I also grew up in smoggy Los Angeles, where pollution and atmospheric degradation were an omnipresent reality."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

American Historical Review, April, 2002, Christopher Sellers, review of Don't Breathe the Air: Air Pollution and U.S. Environmental Politics, 1945-1970, p. 570.

Choice, March, 2001, J. H. Hunter, review of Don't Breathe the Air, p. 1302.

Journal of American History, September, 2001, Stan Luger, review of Don't Breathe the Air, p. 736.

Pacific Historical Review, November, 2001, Andrew Hurley, review of Don't Breathe the Air, p. 658.