Download The National Parks: America's Best Idea AudioBook Free
The companion size to the twelve-hour PBS series from the acclaimed filmmaker behind The Civil Conflict, Football, and The Conflict
America’s nationwide parks spring and coil from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Freedom: that the country’s most spectacular and sacred places should be conserved, not for royalty or the abundant, but for everyone. On this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns up and Dayton Duncan explore the history of the area idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that could become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first nationwide area at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres.
The authors recount the activities, mythmaking, and extreme political battles behind the development of the area system, and the enduring ideals that fostered its progress. They capture the value and splendors of the average person parks: from Haleakala in Hawaii to Acadia in Maine, from Denali in Alaska to the Everglades in Florida, from Glacier in Montana to Big Bend in Texas. Plus they create us to a diverse solid of compelling people—both unsung heroes and famous results such as John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ansel Adams—who have been transformed by these special places and committed themselves to conserving them from destruction so that the rest of us could be transformed as well.
The National Parks is a glorious special event of an important manifestation of American democracy.
From the Hardcover edition.
