A Review:
Humans have an affinity towards the monumental. We seek
to erect (and examine) massive mileposts that mark the ostensibly forward
progress of civilization: the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, Europe’s many
castles, the massive obelisk called the Washington Monument. Such landmarks allow human cultures to plot a future
course by looking to a colossally memorialized past.
Runte show how this human proclivity led to the
exploration and creation of the U.S. National Parks, especially in Yosemite and Yellowstone. He writes: “The United States sought out and protected the ‘earth monuments’ of the
West as replacements for the landmarks of human achievement still absent in the
New World.” The natural wonders of the American West,
preservation of which began in the late 1800s, provided Americans who felt
culturally bereft in comparison with Europeans, with a unique source of pride.
Where else in the world could one find such serenity (and such trees!) as in
the Yosemite Valley? Similarly, Yellowstone’s terrain seemed like something out of a “child’s fairy tale,” at
least to the New York Times.
The cultural pride Americans developed in their natural
landscape became the impetus for the National Park System, although the rules
governing that system evolved on a learning curve, Runte shows. The link
between geography and culture played out as the system evolved.
Environmentalists chose their battles, and battlefields, carefully. Their
efforts relied as much on what the landscape lacked, as what it contained.
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