"[7] The restoration movement began in the early 1900s when conservationists dissatisfied with gun and hunting restrictions argued that bison could be bred and then released onto designated reservations.

[6] At the same time, women botanists and landscape architects like Eloise Butler, Edith Roberts, and Elsa Rehmann developed the science of native plant propagation.

[10] During the 1960s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission funded simulations of World War III, in which ecologists intentionally destroyed ecosystems to study how biodiversity recovered.

Part III of Wild by Design analyses the impact of post-1970s environmental laws on restoration efforts and why the goal of returning ecosystems to precolonial conditions emerged.

Yet Brewitt also suggests Martin's treatment doesn't always do full justice to the wide scope of her subject, and in particular that the book fails to clarify how representative the cases it features are.

[10] Writer Celeste Pepitone-Nahas suggested the book's historical sweep alone makes it a major achievement, though said she would have preferred more coverage on the efforts of Indigenous activists.

[14] Author Julie Dunlap praised the book as incisive and for transiting Martin's "erudite perspective", but regretted the relative lack of coverage on efforts to protect nature from global warming.