An American Idea: The Making of the National Parks

THE MAKING OF THE NATIONAL PARKS AN AMERICAN IDEA The National Park System ranks as one of our most magnificent achievements, ana the story of its creation offer insights into how the American landscape shaped our history and character and continues to do so today, almost 175 years after painter George Catlin first articulated the idea of "a nation's Park." In these lavishly illustrated pages, award-winning author Kim Heacox uses this uniquely American idea as the focus for a wide-ranging chronicle of our evolving vision of wildness. His narrative begins in the 17th century, when our first settlers built towns around shared lands known as commons, and ends in 1916, when the National Park Service was formed to administer a new kind of common - unspoiled and held in trust for Americans everywhere. In spectacular counterpoint, 100 illustrations offer unforgettable glimpses of a wilderness that awed the painters and photographers who first recorded its splendors. Here, too, are images by pioneering photographers from Eadweard Muybridge to Ansel Adams, documenting the discoveries that led to parks all over our nation. An epilogue summarizes the developments since 1916, and an appendix provides descriptions of every national park.