Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America's First National Park (with an Epilogue by the Author) - Softcover

Chase, Alston

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156720361 ISBN 13: 9780156720366

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 1987

Synopsis

Chase asserts that Yellowstone is being destroyed by the very people assigned to protect it: the National Park Service. Named as one of “ten books that mattered” in the 1980s by Outside magazine and a book of continuing crucial relevance. Index; map.

About this title

About the Author:

Alston Chase is a former philosophy professor who has degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Princeton Universities. He served as chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Macalester College in Minnesota, where his disenchantment with the academy led to his early retirement from the professorial life. He is a frequent contributor to national magazines. Some of his books are Playing God in Yellowstone, In a Dark Wood and most recently Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist. He and his wife live in Paradise Valley, Montana.

Review:

The head of an education program at Yellowstone, Chase charges that the overriding priority of the national park's staff is the safety of the visitors and that current wildlife management stresses an "intact ecosystem," meaning that diseased animals are allowed to roam, among other problems. PW called this "explosive."
(Publishers Weekly)

Chase argues convincingly that Yellowstone National Park is slowly being destroyed. He details how the Park Service's preservationist policies have driven most of the native wildlife from the park, while allowing some animals to propagate far beyond the land's capacity to sustain them. He meticulously documents his charges, showing how easily science can be subverted by politics and ideology. Surprisingly, environmentalists are implicated in the destruction. Chase critiques, with devastating effect, the multitude of organizations that have made a religion of protecting the environment, while ignoring the fundamental question of man's place in nature. A challenging, compellingly readable account. Highly recommended. Randy Dykhuis, Grace A. Dow Memorial Lib., Midland, Mich.
(Library Journal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0156720361
• ISBN 13: 9780156720366
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480