Conservation/Environmental Issues in the Parks

  • Kenyon, Mark. That Wild Country: An Epic Journey Though the Past, Present, and Future of America’s Public Lands (2019)

This book combines travelogue and historical examination to explore the utilitarian versus conservation nature debate from historical and modern-day lenses. 

  • McPhee, John. Encounters with the Archdruid: Narratives About a Conservationist and Three of His Natural Enemies (1980)

 

  • Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind (2014)

This book provides an overview of humanity’s relationship with nature from the earliest times to the present. Nash contends that humankind’s love affair with nature is a comparatively modern phenomenon.

 

  • Manning, Robert, et. al, A Thinking Person’s Guide to America’s National Parks (2016)

The Thinking Person’s Guide is a collection of 23 essays which focus on facets of park management and visitation in today’s world. Topics include conservation, recreation, education, biodiversity, indigenous voices, the industrial past, and many other subjects.

Native Americans and the Parks

  • Burnham, Philip. Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and the National Parks (2012)

 

  • Spence, Mark David. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (1999)

 

National Parks Advocates

  • Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. Voice of the River (1987)

 

  • Green, Tyler. Carleton Watkins: Making the West American (2018)

 

  • Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)

 

  • Adams, Ansel. Edited by Andrea Stillman.  Ansel Adams in the National Parks: Photographs from America’s Wild Places (2010)

Images captured by Ansel Adams, the most renowned photographer of America’s National Parks and arguably the greatest photographer of the 20th century, are presented in this comprehensive collection of his work in the parks.

 

  • Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (2010)

President Theodore Roosevelt was instrumental in protecting natural places and the wildlife that call those places home.  This epic biography captures the man as well as the struggle for which he is most remembered – the preservation of nature.          

 

National Park Service

  • Clayton, John. Natural Rivals: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of America’s Public Lands (2019)
  • Drabelle, Dennis. The Power of Scenery: Frederick Law Olmsted and the Origin of National Parks (2021)
  • Albright, Horace and Marian Albright Schenck. Creating the National Park Service (1999)

    Horace Albright, the Assistant Director of the National Park Service from 1917-1919, was one of the key people involved in the organization’s formation.  Albright and his daughter, Marian Schenk, wrote this book together to capture the National Park Service’s origin story.

     

     

    National Parks Historical Overview/Guidebooks

    • Burns, Ken and Dayton Duncan. The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009)

    This book is an overview of the early history of the park idea and the growth of the park system over the past 140 years. It provides a useful overview, accounts of dramatic conflicts, and illustrative biographical sketches.

     

    • National Geographic. Guide to the National Parks of the United States, 9th (2021)

    This guidebook provides us with images and information about 62 National Parks. One of the virtues of this book is that it provides abundant information on each of our parks — so it will be a useful guide to any park you decide to visit in the future.

     

    • Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience, 4th ed (2010)

    Park Administration

    • Tilden, Freeman. Interpreting our Heritage, 4th Edition (2008)

    “Freeman Tilden, who pioneered national park interpretation, described the art of interpretation in his classic book Interpreting Our Heritage as “an educational activity that aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by firsthand experience . . . rather than simply to communicate factual information.”

    Underrepresented Voices

    • Finney, Carolyn. Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (2014) 

     

    • Kaufman, Polly Welts. National Parks and the Woman’s Voice: A History (2006)