Karl Boyd Brooks Papers, 1986-1996

Karl Boyd Brooks was born in Boise, Idaho, on August 23, 1956. A graduate of the Boise public schools, he earned a bachelors degree in history (Phi Beta Kappa) from Yale University, a masters degree in international relations from the London School of Economics, and a law degree from Harvard. On his return to Boise in 1983, he went to work as a litigator for Boise Cascade Corporation, a forest products company, and stayed with the company for seven years before moving to the law firm of Holland & Hart in 1990. Active in politics, he was elected as a Democrat to the Idaho State Senate in 1986 representing southeast Boise. In the legislature, he quickly earned a reputation as an environmentalist. He was reelected in 1988 and 1990, but did not seek reelection in 1992. In 1993 he left Holland & Hart and went to work for the Idaho Conservation League, the state's largest environmental organization. He served as the organization's executive and legislative director between 1993 and 1996. Brooks then returned to academe, earning a Ph.D. in history from the University of Kansas in 2000. He has been a professor of history and environmental studies at the University of Kansas since then. He is the author of numerous articles and the book Public Dams, Private Power: The Hells Canyon High Dam Controversy (University of Washington Press, 2006).