Nature's Spectacle
The World's First National Parks and Protected Places
John Sheail
Cloth: 978 1 84971 129 6
Price: $99.95  

Publisher: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
July 2010 , 347 pp., 6 1/4" x 9 1/4"
photos
National parks have always been an emotive and iconic symbol, ever since the first parks of the modern era were created in the mid-nineteenth century. This book, based on original archival research, delves deeply into their character and significance, and the larger context in which they first developed. The author identifies, describes and reflects upon what caused governments to intervene and establish, in that early modern period, what are today recognized to be national parks. However much they were created as acts of defiance, the parks gave added entrepreneurial impetus to the remoter parts of North America, the overseas territories of the imperial European powers, and of Europe itself. Those of Sweden, Switzerland and Italy are shown to become exemplars of what others might aspire to, while there is extensive coverage of parks in Asia, Africa and Australia as well.

The book's historical reconstruction celebrates the deserved attractiveness of the parks as wilderness or “spectacle” to millions of visitors, but also emphasizes how there was nothing inevitable, self-sustaining or without cost in their magnificence and accessibility. Those early parks were a powerful unifying force as national playgrounds, especially as motor transport democratized their use. However they also provoked bitter conflict in their dispossession of local communities and perhaps deliberate segregation of people from scenery and wildlife. That first century of national parks, which concluded with the significant break of the Second World War and the subsequent development of more international approaches to conservation, left an uncertain legacy. It was a fragile foundation from which to build what became an integral part of today's conservation movement.

Table of Contents:
CONTENTS
Preface

Chapter One - ACTS OF DEFIANCE

1.1 Introduction
1.2 The utility and romance

Chapter Two - AMERICA'S INVENTION

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Yosemite Valley
2.3 Yellowstone
2.4 John Muir
2.5 Saved by the cavalry

Chapter Three - SCENIC RESERVES

3.1 Introduction
3.2 'America of the South'
3.3 'God's own country'
3.4 The Canadian railroad-parks

Chapter Four - THE FOREST RESERVES

4.1 Introduction
4.2 State and provincial parks
4.3 The Southern forests
4.4 The United States' Forest Service
4.5 The Canadian forest reserves

Chapter Five - WILDLIFE RESERVES

5.1 Introduction
5.2 The sporting-hunter
5.3 Antipodean wildlife-reserves
5.4 Canada's 'ample sanctuaries

Chapter Six - NATIONAL MONUMENTS

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Naturschutz
6.3 The Swedish national parks
6.4 The Swiss national park
6.5 The National Trust

Chapter Seven - CONSERVATION AND THE AMERICAN PARKS

7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Hetch Hetchy valley
7.3 Frustrated ambition
7.4 'America First'
7.5 The Organic Act

Chapter Eight - PARKS AND EMPIRE-MAKING

8.1 Introduction
8.2 The hunter-naturalist
8.3 The Kruger national park
8.4 Parks and strict nature-reserves
8.5 The George V Memorial park
8.6 British East Africa

Chapter Nine - THE MAKING OF A PARKS' SYSTEM

9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Canadian Parks Branch
9.3 The National Park Service
9.4 Parks across America
9.5 Parks for purchase
9.6 Parks and road construction

Chapter Ten - NATIONAL PLAYGROUNDS

10.1 Introduction
10.2 Tourist development
10.3 Park standards
10.4 Park interpretation
10.5 Naturalization
10.6 Parks' predator-control
10.7 Zapovedniki

Chapter Eleven - PARKS AS CONTESTED GROUNDS

11.1 Introduction
11.2 African dispossession
11.3 Rights to the parks
11.4 The right to roam
11.5 Bush-walking
11.6 Wilderness preservation

Chapter Twelve - AN UNCERTAIN LEGACY

12.1 Introduction
12.2 The Latin American parks
12.3 The Grand Tetons
12.4 National planning
12.5 Parks and post-war planning
12.6 Rhetoric and reality

13. Epilogue

Index


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Reviews & Endorsements:
'This major historical treatment provides a global view of the first century of the national park movement. The very broad coverage of many countries provides the reader with a stimulating account of grand ideas as they developed.'
- Paul F. J. Eagles, Professor, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada
"This book is the most rounded account of the international development of national parks that I have seen—meticulously researched yet very readable."
- W.M. Adams, Moran Professor of Conservation and Development , University of Cambridge