Wilderness in national parks : playground or preserve / John C. Miles.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miles, John C., 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National parks and reserves--United States.

National parks and reserves.

Nature conservation--United States.

Nature conservation.

Wilderness areas--United States.

Wilderness areas.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (346 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Seattle : University of Washington Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Wilderness in National Parks casts light on the complicated relationship between the National Park Service and its policy goals of wilderness preservation and recreation. By examining the overlapping and sometimes contradictory responsibilities of the park service and the national wilderness preservation system, John C. Miles finds the National Park Service still struggling to deal with an idea that lies at the core of its mission and yet complicates that mission, nearly one hundred years into its existence.The National Park Service's ambivalence about wilderness is traced from its beginning to the turn of the twenty-first century. The Service is charged with managing more wilderness acreage than any government agency in the world and, in its early years, frequently favored development over preservation. The public has perceived national parks as permanently protected wilderness resources, but in reality this public confidence rests on shaky ground.Miles shows how changing conceptions of wilderness affected park management over the years, with a focus on the tension between the goals of providing recreational spaces for the American people and leaving lands pristine and undeveloped for future generations.

Contents:

Introduction

Wilderness and the origins of National Parks

Wilderness and the new agency

Wilderness becomes an issue for the Park Service

Preservation of the primeval in the Post-Mather Era

More ferment and expansion

From the war to Director Wirth

The drive for a wilderness act

A hesitant start at implementation

Wilderness reviews reluctantly completed

Wilderness in Alaska

A new sort of National Park wilderness

Park wilderness after the reviews

The work continues

Epilogue.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-322) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780295990392

0295990392

OCLC:

659392317