National Parks: The American Experience

Completely revised for its fifth edition, National Parks: The American Experience tells the highly engaging story of how Americans invented and expanded the concept of national parks. A prominent adviser to the Ken Burns Emmy Award-winning documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," Alfred Runte is renowned as the nation's leading historian on the meaning and management of these treasured lands. Lavishly illustrated with period photographs, including eight pages of color paintings, National Parks: The American Experience has never been more beautiful or profound. This remains a stirring look into the lands that define America, from Yosemite and Yellowstone to wilderness Alaska. This is how we got our parks, and yes, how we have occasionally failed them, and when doing so how we have failed ourselves. "Civilization is the problem parks solve," Runte writes. At times, the national parks may seem as imperfect as they are exceptional; the point is that they are all we will ever have. Knowing that earlier America, and planning for the new America, still demands our humility to advance the best of both.