The National Parks: America’s Best Idea
Where to buy The National Parks: America’s Best Thought books online?
- Ken Burns
- 9780310000000
- Outdoor Books & Videos
Product Description
The companion volume to the twelve-hour PBS series from the acclaimed filmmaker behind The Civil War, Baseball, and The War
America’s national parks spring from an thought as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park thought, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park 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 adventures, mythmaking, and intense political battles behind the evolution of the park system, and the enduring ideals that fostered its growth. They capture the importance and splendors of the individual parks: from Haleakala in Hawaii to Acadia in Maine, from Denali in Alaska to the Everglades in Florida, from Glacier in Montana to Huge Bend in Texas. And they introduce us to a diverse cast of compelling characters—both unsung heroes and legendary facts such as John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ansel Adams—who have been transformed by these special places and committed themselves to saving them from destruction so that the rest of us could be transformed as well.
The National Parks is a glorious celebration of an essential expression of American democracy.Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Joseph J. Ellis Reviews The National Parks
Educated at the College of William and Mary and Yale University, Joseph J. Ellis is a Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. His Founding Brothers won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, and American Sphinx earned the 1997 National Book Award. His latest work, American Creation, was published in 2007. Read Ellis’s exclusive Amazon guest review of The National Parks: America’s Best Thought:
If Ken Burns’s upcoming documentary film on America’s National Parks is as excellent as the book laying open before me, he has another huge winner. Of course the book, entitled The National Parks: America’s Best Thought, is proposed as a companion to the film, but as I see it–factually–the book permits the eye and mind to linger over the truly breathtaking pictures in a more meditative way that film does not allow. The result is nearly elegiac, producing the same kind of goose bumps that Burns made in his early work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Civil War.
Burns has been chronicling the American experience for over thirty years, and I reflect it’s honest to say that no one has influenced more living Americans to reflect about our history as a people and a nation. His dominant themes have been space and race, his persistent question deceptively simple: who are we? I reflect The National Parks is his masterpiece on the space theme. And the message that kept whispering to me in these pages was that whoever we are has been decisively shaped by the sheer physicality of the continent we inhabit.
It never occurred to me before, but Americans invented the thought institutionalized in our National Parks. Namely, as Burns puts it in the introduction, “for the first time in human history, land–fantastic sections of our natural landscape–was set aside, not for kings or noblemen or the very rich, but for everyone, for all time.” As Wallace Stegner once experimental, and the book’s subtitle echoes, this may have been “America’s best thought.” Burns links the thought to Jefferson’s magic words in the Declaration of Independence (i.e. “We hold these truths…”), our quasi-sacred text on human freedom, which takes on an nearly spiritual reminiscence amidst the vistas of Yosemite or Yellowstone.
Dayton Duncan, Burns’s longtime colleague, has provided most of the text, which is designed to cast a spell that matches the marvel of the stunning illustrations. The book looks luxurious and feels expensive, but this visit to the National Parks is a fantastic deal.–Joseph J. Ellis
(Photo © Jim Gipe)
Look Inside The National Parks
 |
 |
 |
 |
Buy Cheap The National Parks: America’s Best Thought Online
Related posts:
- National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States, 6th Edition
- National Geographic Complete National Parks of the United States
- Frommer’s Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks
- Best Easy Day Hikes Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks, 2nd
- Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and Jackson Hole: Great Destinations: A Complete Guide
Like every God-fearing American I watched the wonderful National Parks specials on PBS, and I loved every second of it. Has there ever been made a better tribute to our nation’s natural splendor? We are truly the chosen people. Look about you, fellow citizen! In between the two bright seas under her dominion America is filled with glorious mountain peaks, snowcapped and sketched as if by God himself onto the azure horizon. Glorious green forests take in the land, teeming with species unique to America: treecows, buffalo, Quetzl snakes and the all-American woodgrub. In the land of the free the stars shine somehow brighter. Our southwest deserts are the finest southwest deserts to be establish in any country’s southwestern part. The Grand Gap, perhaps America’s most legendary geological magic trick, is the #1 tourist destination in the entire world. I went there myself to sample the skywalk — this was two months ago. A frightening experience! I’ll not return. But I digress.
It was with the above on the brain that I bought this DVD, which subsequently broke my DVD player. Smoke everywhere, an dreadful smell. Next time I will order direct from PBS.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I never received this item. An e-mail to the shipper elicited the following response. “I don’t know what happened. I went on line and saw that Amazon refunded you for this item.” I never received a refund notice from Amazon. What gives?
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I bought this as a gift for a cousin in Australia. The book was out of stock in local stores before Christmas. I bought from Amazon. Upon getting it, I was disappointed in the relative lack of outstanding color Photos of our parks, (like the one on the take in). Lots of text about teddy bear Roosevelt and John Muir. It wasn’t what I was looking for. I returned it. Check it out before you buy.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
It is a wonderful history book. It is not a travel planner. Lots of past photographs and lots of black and white photography. If you’re in to the history of the national parks, this is the book for you! You’ll like it! If you’re preparation on going to the national parks and want to know the ins and outs of traveling there, buy Fromm’s or another travel book from Amazon.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
The book is a fantastic companion to the series and resulting videos place out by Ken Burns thru PBS, but, I noticed that the whole series was a small “envirronmentalist” in attitude, rather being an objective view on the rise of the National Parks System. For example it really downplayed the Hayden and additional surveys, which really brought images back to persons in the East, who were the main policy makers of the day in favor of John Muir’s views. In order to be more objective, all views need to be equally looked at.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5