Contact us on (02) 8445 2300
For all customer service and order enquiries

Woodslane Online Catalogues

National Parks

The American Experience
Description
Author
Biography
Reviews
Google
Preview
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.
An internationally recognized expert on America's national parks, Alfred Runte is based in Seattle, Washington Runte has also been a guest on Nightline, The Today Show, 48 Hours, the History and Travel channels, and speaks frequently in public forums on the need to protect our parks. His other books include Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness, and Trains of Discovery: Railroads and the Legacy of Our National Parks, now in its fifth edition. In April 2011, Runte was elected to membership in the College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame at Illinois State University (his master's degree institution) "in recognition of exemplary achievement" as a teacher and public scholar. He also holds a B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Alfred Runte brilliantly demonstrates why he is considered one of America's preeminent environmental historians. Not only does National Parks sing with inspiration, but it is the most trustworthy synthesis scholars have on the American preservation movement. Everybody should read this marvelous study. Highly recommended!--Douglas Brinkley, Rice University Alfred Runte gives a comprehensive discussion of America's parks. National Parks is a choice and solidly recommended addition to natural history collections.--Midwest Book Review Congratulations to Al Runte on the fourth edition of National Parks: The American Experience. Al understands and captures not only the history of our national parks but also their importance to the United States and the world. From Al's childhood experiences in national parks to all the research he has done on their history and value, his fourth edition captures why our national parks are America's best idea.--Fran P. Mainella, 16th director of the National Park Service, and visiting scholar, Clemson University Having had a role in the beginnings of this important book, it is an honor to celebrate its fourth edition. Al Runte reminds us how dramatically the valuation of national parks has changed in little more than a century. Read it and you will learn why national parks can be considered a distinctively American idea, indeed a contribution of our nation to world civilization.--Roderick Frazier Nash, author of Wilderness and the American Mind In this highly acclaimed history of the national parks, Alfred Runte takes us from Yosemite and Yellowstone to Alaska on a journey of discovery of the American land. Also a prominent adviser and on-camera personality in the Ken Burns documentary, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, Runte reminds us what it means to have national parks in a country equally committed to economic achievement. In this fourth edition, there are many new photographs and some old favorites--including an eight-page color portfolio. The text has been revisited in its entirety and a majority of the chapters extensively revised. The book concludes with a hard-hitting assessment about the future, noting that civilization is the problem parks solve. If the park idea America started is to survive, the world must continue to embrace it, too.--El Paisano Like John Muir, Al Runte has felt the siren call of our saved--and sacred--places, and, like John Muir, he has found a way to share their glories with power and poetry. This is a sensitive, well-written history of our land and the complicated people who call it home.--Ken Burns, filmmaker
Google Preview content