National Parks: The American Experience

Are national parks playgrounds or sanctuaries or both? In Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Great Smokies, the Grand Canyon, the number of visitors increases yearly, and managing the parks wisely has become truly critical. Alfred Runte proposes, in the first comprehensive history of the national park idea, that to guide the future understand the social and cultural forces that created them. The book reproduces fifty-two photographs, many previously unpublished, illustrating the growth of the national park idea. Includes an extensive bibliography.

Alfred Runte, a Seattle-based environmental historian, is the author of Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness (Nebraska 1990).