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Seeking a taste of unspoiled wilderness, more than eight million
people visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park each year. Yet
few probably realize what makes the park unusual: it was the result
of efforts to reclaim wilderness rather than to protect undeveloped
land.
The Smokies have, in fact, been a human habitat for 8,000 years,
and that contact has molded the landscape as surely as natural
forces have. In this book, Daniel S. Pierce examines land use in
the Smokies over the centuries, describing the pageant of peoples
who have inhabited these mountains and then focusing on the
twentieth-century movement to create a national park.
Drawing on previously unexplored archival materials, Pierce
presents the most balanced account available of the development of
the park. He tells how park supporters set about raising money to
buy the land--often from resistant timber companies--and describes
the fierce infighting between wilderness advocates and tourism
boosters over the shape the park would take. He also discloses the
unfortunate human cost of the park's creation: the displacement of
the area's inhabitants.
Pierce is especially insightful regarding the often-neglected
history of the park since 1945. He looks at the problems caused by
roadbuilding, tree blight, and air pollution that becomes trapped
in the mountains' natural haze. He also provides astute assessments
of the Cades Cove restoration, the Fontana Lake road construction,
and other recent developments involving the park.
Full of outstanding photographs and boasting a breadth of coverage
unmatched in other books of its kind, The Great Smokies will help
visitors better appreciate the wilderness experience they have
sought. Pierce's account makes us more aware of humanity's long
interaction with the land while capturing the spirit of those
idealistic environmentalists who realized their vision to protect
it.
The Author: Daniel S. Pierce teaches in the department of history
and the humanities program at the University of North Carolina,
Asheville, and is a contributor to The Tennessee Encyclopedia of
History and Culture.
In this history of the stock car racing circuit known as NASCAR,
Daniel Pierce offers a revealing new look at the sport from its
postwar beginnings on Daytona Beach and Piedmont dirt tracks
through the early 1970s when the sport spread beyond its southern
roots and gained national recognition. Following NASCAR founder Big
Bill France from his start as a mechanic, Real NASCAR details the
sport's genesis as it has never been shown before. Pierce not only
confirms the popular notion of NASCAR's origins in bootlegging, but
also establishes beyond a doubt the close ties between organized
racing and the illegal liquor industry, a story that readers will
find both fascinating and controversial. Drawing on the memories of
a variety of participants--including highly colorful characters
like Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall, Gober Sosebee, Smokey Yunick, Bunky
Knudsen, Humpy Wheeler, Bobby Isaac, Junior Johnson, and Big Bill
France himself-- Real NASCAR shows how the reputation for wildness
of these racers-by-day and bootleggers-by-night drew throngs of
spectators to the tracks in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. They came to
watch their heroes maneuver ordinary automobiles at incredible
speed, beating and banging on each other, wrecking spectacularly,
and fighting out their differences in the infield. Although France
faced many challenges--including a fickle Detroit that often seemed
unsure of its support for the sport, safety issues that killed star
drivers and threatened its very existence, and drivers who twice
tried to unionize to gain a bigger piece of the NASCAR pie--by the
early 1970s France and his allies had laid a firm foundation for
what has become today a billion-dollar industry and arguably the
largest spectator sport in America. |In this history of the stock
car racing circuit known as NASCAR, Pierce offers a revealing new
look at the sport from its postwar beginnings on Daytona Beach and
Piedmont dirt tracks through the early 1970s when the sport spread
beyond its southern roots and gained national recognition. The book
not only confirms the popular notion of NASCAR's origins in
bootlegging, but also establishes beyond a doubt the close ties
between organized racing and the illegal liquor industry, a story
that readers will find both fascinating and controversial.
Seeking a taste of unspoiled wilderness, more than eight million
people visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park each year. Yet
few probably realize what makes the park unusual: it was the result
of efforts to reclaim wilderness rather than to protect undeveloped
land.
The Smokies have, in fact, been a human habitat for 8,000 years,
and that contact has molded the landscape as surely as natural
forces have. In this book, Daniel S. Pierce examines land use in
the Smokies over the centuries, describing the pageant of peoples
who have inhabited these mountains and then focusing on the
twentieth-century movement to create a national park.
Drawing on previously unexplored archival materials, Pierce
presents the most balanced account available of the development of
the park. He tells how park supporters set about raising money to
buy the land--often from resistant timber companies--and describes
the fierce infighting between wilderness advocates and tourism
boosters over the shape the park would take. He also discloses the
unfortunate human cost of the park's creation: the displacement of
the area's inhabitants.
Pierce is especially insightful regarding the often-neglected
history of the park since 1945. He looks at the problems caused by
roadbuilding, tree blight, and air pollution that becomes trapped
in the mountains' natural haze. He also provides astute assessments
of the Cades Cove restoration, the Fontana Lake road construction,
and other recent developments involving the park.
Full of outstanding photographs and boasting a breadth of coverage
unmatched in other books of its kind, The Great Smokies will help
visitors better appreciate the wilderness experience they have
sought. Pierce's account makes us more aware of humanity's long
interaction with the land while capturing the spirit of those
idealistic environmentalists who realized their vision to protect
it.
The Author: Daniel S. Pierce teaches in the department of history
and the humanities program at the University of North Carolina,
Asheville, and is a contributor to The Tennessee Encyclopedia of
History and Culture.
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