Writer, author, commentator, activist, teacher, advocate -- all describe prolific veteran environmental writer Michael Frome. But not “journalist,” at least not in the traditional and conventional – and some say outdated – sense meant to imply a rigid allegiance to “objectivity” and reporting of “all sides.”

Frome artfully carries his “take no prisoners” approach to environmental issues and carries it from his stint as a reporter with The Washington Post after World War II, through his PR days with the, get this, American Automobile Association, and on through his time as Field & Stream columnist. In Greenspeak, he chronicles his views on a wide range of conservation issues through a collection of speeches he delivered between 1963 and 2001 before a range of audiences.

It’s the kind of book – all 290 pages of it – that one can read in pieces, and not necessarily in the chronological order presented.

It takes some ego and chutzpah to put forth such an entry. But Frome had and has a lot to say, and through his lens, readers can gain an historical perspective on many forestry, wilderness, and conservation issues that, it must be said, still rage today and may for years to come.

Greenspeak, by Michael Frome. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN; 2002; ISBN 1-57233-177-1; 291 pages.