Pilgrimage to the national parks : religion and nature in the United States / Lynn Ross-Bryant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ross-Bryant, Lynn.

Series:

Routledge studies in religion, travel, and tourism ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National parks and reserves--Social aspects--United States--History.

National parks and reserves.

National parks and reserves--West (U.S.)--History.

Nature--Religious aspects--History.

Nature.

Pilgrims and pilgrimages--United States--History.

Pilgrims and pilgrimages.

Wilderness areas--United States--History.

Wilderness areas.

Sacred space--United States--History.

Sacred space.

National characteristics, American--History.

National characteristics, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (327 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

National Parks - 'America's Best Idea' - were from the first seen as sacred sites embodying the God-given specialness of American people and American land, and from the first they were also marked as tourist attractions. The inherent tensions between these two realities ensured the parks would be stages where the country's conflicting values would be performed and contested. As pilgrimage sites embody the values and beliefs of those who are drawn to them, so Americans could travel to these sacred places to honor, experience, and be restored by the powers that had created the American

Contents:

Pilgrimage to the National ParksReligion and Nature in the United States; Copyright; Contents; List of Figures; Foreword; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Our National Parks; Religion; The Nature of Nature; Pilgrimage and Tourism; Myth and Ritual; Contestation and Heterogeneity; Storied Sacred Space; The Evolution of the National Parks as Pilgrimage Sites; America's Best Idea; Part IThe New World; Introduction to Part I: America Comes of Age; 1 Yosemite: New World Sublimity; The Newness of the New World; The American Experience in Yosemite; The Art of Perception; Preserved for the People

2 The Dream of Yellowstone: Progress in the Pristine LandWonderland; The Tools of Art and Science in the Construction of Yellowstone; Civilizing Nature; Nature and Technology; Part IIWilderness and Beyond; Introduction to Part II: The Age of Anxiety; 3 Seeing America in Grand Canyon and Glacier National Parks; Creating the "Titan of Chasms"; Living Ruins; The Great Unknown; Pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Ages; Preservation and Conquest in Glacier National Park; Reenacting the Strenuuous Life; Construction of a Frontier; The Glacier Pilgrimage; Indians and the National Parks

4 The National Park IdeaPrelude to the Establishment of the National Park Service; Selling the National Park Idea; A Second Origin Story; Automobile Pilgrimage-An Alternative Narrative; Rituals of the Pilgrimage: America around the Campfire; Part IIICompeting Constructions of Wilderness; Introduction to Part III: Competing Constructions of Wilderness; 5 Mythic and Scientific America; "Laboratory Out-of-doors"; Emergence of Alternative Narratives; The Culmination of the Mather-Albright Tradition; Change and Tradition in the Parks; Preservation "for the People"; 6 The Wilderness Idea

Wilderness BeginningsMythic America: Wilderness as Eden and the Frontier; Ansel Adams' Photography and the Religion of Nature; Rethinking Nature and Humans; 7 Unbounded Possibilities; Reconceptualization of Space; A New Role for Science; Imagining Ecosystems; Alaska: Inhabited Wilderness; Reimagining Nature and Culture; Epilogue: Pilgrimage and the Future of the National Parks; Change in Paradise; The Dynamics of Change; A Vision for the Future; Pilgrimage in the Gaps; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

"Simultaneously published in the UK"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on metadata supplied by the publisher and other sources.

ISBN:

1-136-20725-2

0-203-09446-8

1-283-84447-8

1-136-20726-0

9780203094464

OCLC:

821175656