Alfred Runte – författare

How should a national park be managed? Among all of the debates affecting America’s national parks, none has proved more enduring. Nor has any park, Alfred Runte reminds us, been in the spotlight more than Yosemite. Its cast of characters is especially rich, including James Mason Hutchings, Galen Clark, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Muir, David Brower, Joseph Grinnell, George M. Wright, and Ansel Adams. Not only was Yosemite the centerpiece of their careers, it was also the wellspring of their passion for nature. Now fully revised and updated, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness continues their story, from Yosemite’s path-breaking establishment in 1864 as a grant to California, 1890 expansion into a national park, boundary reductions and loss of the Hetch Hetchy Valley, evolution of wildlife protections and science, management practices threatening Yosemite Valley, and the fight for wilderness to the present day.

Revised with a new epilogue, “We the People,” this fifth edition of National Parks: TheAmerican Experience continues 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. Further supported with period photographs and now twelve pages of color paintings, National Parks 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 looking to the future, the challenges that remain in preserving them. Are “we the people” still up to the task? Yes, this history advises, but only if we consistently cherish the national unity that our commitment to the parks further demands.