Yosemite: the embattled wilderness

Abstract

'Runte focuses on the debate over the management of the natural resources of the park, deftly addressing delicate questions of the balance between preservation and use...His work is alive, and even more than his fine research and clear writing, his passion accounts for the wide readership his work enjoys' - Environmental History Review. 'An angry book ...firmly grounded in scholarship ...[and placing] in historical perspective the decisions that ...[resulted in] overdevelopment and pollution...Read the book. Get angry. Write your congressman!' - Southern California Quarterly.'The history of Yosemite is symbolic of the environmental history of America itself. Those who read this fine study will come to understand that' - Utah Historical Quarterly. 'A major work that has application beyond the Yosemite experience. Today, America's national parks are being destroyed by the unrestrained commercialism that Runte chronicles so effectively. His work is stimulating, thought-provoking, and valuable for its insights' - Nevada Historical Society Quarterly.' A powerful and important book, a critical contribution to Yosemite historiography and ideology at a time when the politicizing of the Park Service and the vast hordes of visitors pose genuine threats...to the natural environment of Yosemite' - Western American Literature. 'This analysis is applicable to every park, wilderness, and national treasure; it is a warning for every conservationist to be on guard against the pressures for development' - Naturalist Review. Alfred Runte, an environmental historian based in Seattle, is the author of National Parks: The American Experience (1979; rev. ed., 1987), also published by the University of Nebraska Press.