Our Way or the Highway: Inside the Minnehaha Free State

by Mary Losure

An eyewitness account of this controversial environmental action.

Construction plans for the reroute of Highway 55 through south Minneapolis sparked an environmental movement that pitted activists against public authorities in one of the most dramatic episodes in the city's history. Mary Losure was there; as a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio she witnessed the neighborhood's transformation from a quiet street to the center...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816639051
• ISBN13: 9780816639052
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous dialogue

There's a lot of hilarity in this book ("Mommy,why is she wearing that eye-dropper in her ear?"). The grief for the loss of the four trees sneaks up on you between the lines. I agree with a reviewer in Earth First! Journal who found Losure's attitude toward the protesters somewhat dismissive: she seems surprised to discover (near the end of the narrative) that, after all, they might have important point to make. However, I think that this rhetorical structure works in this case in the favor of the trees, if not the protesters themselves: Losure brings the skeptical reader along with her. Like Eliot's Middlemarch, this book is both social satire and ethical touchstone. Ultimately, it has a Dickensian, panoramic quality that really transcends the genre of eco-journalism: while no one social group in the narrative has a monopoly on truth, Losure finds a real beauty in the sometimes clumsy, sometimes ugly Highway 55 conflict.