Suggested Reading List:

Stories about particular parks tend to fascinate readers more than broad histories of the National Park System and the National Park Service. Such books tend to be written by longtime Park Service leaders or by academics.

You'll need an-above average interest in the subject to tackle these books, but if you do read them, you'll come away with even more appreciation for our parks, and the very idea of national parks.

Albright, Horace M. and Marian Albright Schenck Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. 350 pp. Albright was there at the beginning, and gives the consummate insider's account of the early days of National Park Service history.

Albright, Horace M., and Robert Cahn. The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33. Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1985. 340 pp. Albright recalls his key role in establishing the NPS, his years as superintendent of Yellowstone (1919-29), and his term as director (1929-33).

Everhart, William C. The National Park Service. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983. 197 pp. Agency history highlights plus the challenges ahead from a leading park interpreter.

Hartzog, George B., Jr. Battling for the National Parks. Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell, 1988. 284 pp. Hartzog's account of his colorful NPS career, including his stint as director (1964-72).

Rettie, Dwight F. Our National Park System: Caring for America's Greatest Natural and Historic Treasures. Urbana, IL: : University of Illinois Press, 1995. 293 pp. A former NPS official offers his views on the park system and the bureau responsible for it.

Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience. Lincoln, NE.: 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. 335 pp. An excellent account of the origins and evolution of the national park idea and the politics that involved in establishing parks and the NPS administering them.

Sax, Joseph L. Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 1980. A gem. Really makes you think about why our parks were preserved and for whom.

Sellars, Richard West, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1997. 380 pp. This book offers a fresh perspective on our parks and the NPS, as well as a critique on the agency's less-than-vigorous environmental vigilance in recent years.

Shankland, Robert. Steve Mather of the National Parks. 3d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. 346 pp. While this biography isn't quite as lively as its subject, it's still a rather intriguing account of the agency's founder and first director (1917-29).

Best Coffee Table Book

National Parks of America

by David Muench (Photographer) with text by Stewart L. Udall & James R. Udall (Text) (Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company ISBN: 1558681248

If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture of a national park must be worth at least five thousand. Never was this truer than in a publication entitled National Parks of America, a 224-page pictorial tour of 43 of our national parks. Whether your interest is photography, wildlife viewing, or like me, you have a passion for exploring our national parks, you will draw inspiration from the images in National Parks of America. As photographer David Muench says, "hopefully these photographs may help to rekindle the curiosity, intuition, and imagination in discovering the beauty in our national parks."

David Muench is a thirty-year veteran of landscape photography, specializing in national parks and wilderness areas. He uses various formats ranging from large format (4"x 5") to small format (35mm) to capture the images seen in this book. His park-by-park pictorial tour will take you from the limestone columns of Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky to the crashing waves on Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park in Maine. Both the grandeur and subtlety of landscape are evident, from the pinnacles and spires at Utah's Arches to saw grass prairie of the Everglades in South Florida. Rich texture and colors of flora are captured throughout book, including the miniature landscape of berries and red flowers of Alaska's Denali and the sea of wildflowers at Logan Pass in Montana's Glacier National Park.

The outstanding collection of annotated photographs is accompanied by 15-page essay entitled "A Gift to the Future," which summarizes the history of the national park system and explores some of the challenges it faces, from carrying capacity to inadequate funding. Written by Stewart Udall (Secretary of the Interior from 1961-1969) and James Udall, (nature writer), the passages describe the events and personalities that were responsible for the establishment of Yellowstone as our country's first national park in 1872, Teddy Roosevelt sleeping under the stars at Yosemite in 1903, and the authorization of Everglades National Park, a landmark effort to preserve an area for its ecological setting rather than just its scenic features.

As you read National Parks of America and explore its many photographs, it is difficult not to think of the National Park System as one of the crowning achievement of nation's history, with each of its parks as a priceless resource that we must work hard to preserve as part of our national heritage. If you love national parks, then pick up a copy of the book and do what I've done: put it on your coffee table. You'll never tire of looking through the pages, reminiscing about places you've visited, and gaining inspiration for your next visit to a national park.

Darren Smith, your Guide for U.S. National/State Parks