The companion volume to the twelve-hour PBS series from the acclaimed filmmaker behind "The Civil War, Baseball, " and "The War"
America's national parks spring from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation's most magnificent and sacred places should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world's first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres.
The authors recount the adventures, mythmaking, and intense political battles behind the evolution of the park system, and the enduring ideals that fostered its growth. They capture the importance and splendors of the individual parks: from Haleakala in Hawaii to Acadia in Maine, from Denali in Alaska to the Everglades in Florida, from Glacier in Montana to Big Bend in Texas. And they introduce us to a diverse cast of compelling characters--both unsung heroes and famous figures such as John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ansel Adams--who have been transformed by these special places and committed themselves to saving them from destruction so that the rest of us could be transformed as well."
The National Parks" is a glorious celebration of an essential expression of American democracy.

Get an insider look at the US National Park Service to see how they use maps and geospatial technology to protect and manage America's national parks. Maps easily cap your first greeting upon arrival at a national park, allowing you to visualize its vastness, plan your trip, and keep a compact souvenir of your visit. But for the US National Park Service (NPS), maps do more than provide guidance and navigation. Maps help the NPS protect visitors and natural resources. They help manage fires, both unplanned and prescribed. They provide a basis for preserving cultural resources, such as archaeological sites and historic buildings, and for establishing needed facilities, infrastructure, and transportation. The maps in Mapping America's National Parks: Preserving Our Natural and Cultural Treasures are not only beautiful representations of special places. Within the maps are layers of geographic information-a bevy of research and science-that the NPS uses to perform these myriad essential services and to ultimately fulfill their mission. With over 240 full-color maps and photographs of national parks, monuments, battlefields, historic sites, lakeshores, seashores, scenic rivers and trails, and more, Mapping America's National Parks takes you on a journey through our most treasured locations and shows how geographic information system (GIS) software helps the NPS keep the balance between park enjoyment and preservation. Through stories told by their own staff, discover how GIS helps the NPS: provide security for individual wildlife species, members of a crowd at a peaceful demonstration, and entire ecosystems; analyze where people most likely are stranded, where they are least likely stranded, and distribute assets in search and rescue operations; develop strategic plans, budgets, and protection for fire management; and share intelligence on wildlife trafficking, zoonotic diseases, field medicine protocols, and more. Go behind the scenes to see how mapping and geospatial analysis support the full range of NPS natural resource stewardship and science activities. With NPS planning aided by geospatial technology, future generations of park visitors-your children and their children-will be able to enjoy our national parks for years to come.

Suffering from a case of "road fever" brought on by prolonged exposure to the journals of Lewis and Clark, Dayton Duncan has retraced the Corps of Discovery's route from Saint Louis to the Pacific and back again four different times during the past twenty years--to say nothing of his countless additional trips to landmarks along their route. In sweltering summer heat and in temperatures 45 degrees below zero, he watched yellow moons rise and heard buffalo thunder; navigated against the Missouri River's relentless current and stood on its surface, frozen solid overnight; canoed a dozen times through Montana's magnificent White Cliffs (Lewis's "seens of visionary inchantment"); and read the journals by candlelight in the expedition's fort on the Pacific coast. Along the way, Duncan wrote the essays that make up this book, essays that guide the reader on a journey of discovery along the trail of Lewis and Clark.

More a revisiting than a retelling of the story of the Corps of Discovery, Duncan's book reintroduces us to people and places along the trail, reflects on events large and small that occurred during the expedition, and offers constant--and constantly entertaining--insights into why, two centuries later, the saga of Lewis and Clark continues to exert such a powerful hold on our national imagination.

A. B. Guthrie Jr. is best known for his historical fiction; his classic novel The Way West earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Guthrie had the ability to create memorable yet believable characters, was skillful in his use of narration and point of view, and possessed a notable flair for describing the landscape of the American West. It is unsurprising, perhaps, that Guthrie also had a deft talent for short fiction. The Big It and Other Stories collects his diverse shorter tales, written between 1946 and 1960. Often relying on a few recorded facts as a springboard for his lively and sympathetic imagination, Guthrie explores many of his favorite themes-communion between man and nature, the test of manhood, resilience in the face of new or dangerous situations-with a sure and steady hand that always holds the reader's interest. Full of humor and excitement, The Big It and Other Stories showcases Guthrie's art in a new genre and spotlights the love for the West and for westerners that is the hallmark of his writing.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark did not embark on their epic trek across the continent alone-dozens of men and eventually one woman accompanied them. The towering triumph of the Lewis and Clark expedition is due in no small part to the skill and fortitude of such men as Sgt. Charles Floyd, the only expedition member to die; Sgt. Patrick Gass, who lived until 1870, the last surviving member of the expedition; Sgt. Nathaniel Hale Pryor, husband to an Osage woman; and York, Clark's slave, who was freed after the expedition.

The men who were instrumental to the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition come to life in this volume. Through the aid of a detailed biographical roster and a composite diary of the expedition that highlights the roles and actions of the expedition's members, Charles G. Clarke affords readers precious glimpses of those who have long stood in the shadows of Lewis and Clark. Disagreements and achievements, ailments and addictions, and colorful personalities and daily tasks are all vividly rendered in these pages. The result is an unforgettable portrait of the corps of diverse characters who undertook a remarkable journey across the western half of the continent almost two hundred years ago.

One hundred and eighty years after Lewis and Clark's "Voyage of Discovery" (1804-1806), Dayton Duncan set out in a Volkswagen camper to retrace their steps. "Out West" is an account of three separate journeys: Lewis and Clark's epic adventure through uncharted wilderness; Duncan's retracing of the historic trail, now in various ways tamed, paved, and settled; and the journey of the American West in the years in between. Readers traveling with Duncan will encounter the people who inhabit today's West: farmers and ranchers, cowboys and mountain men, Native Americans, residents of dying small towns, city dwellers who have survived cycles of boom and bust. From the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Oregon coast, readers will be treated to a landscape as variously impressive as its people.

"In this splendid book a gifted observer and a terrific idea have come together in a real love match. In 1990, a century after the census bureau's famous observation of the frontier's imminent end, Dayton Duncan set out in an aging GMC Suburban to visit a large sampling of counties outside Alaska that have fewer than two persons per square milethe bureau's old standard for places still in a frontier condition. There are 132 such counties. All are in the West. . . . The result of his tour is an insightful and entertaining book, troubling and funny and consistently illuminating. . . . Much of the book's charm comes from Duncan's sketches of people who choose to live 'miles from nowhere'ranchers in the Nebraska sandhills, a New Mexican bar owner, a priest and United Parcel Service driver along the Texas-Mexico border, and the descendant of a Seminole Negro army scout in west Texas. In them he finds characteristics associated with the mythic frontier. . . . Great fun to read."Montana Born and raised in a small town in Iowa, Dayton Duncan has been a reporter, humor columnist, editorial writer, chief of staff to a governor, and deputy press secretary for presidential campaigns. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire. His books include Out West: An American Journey, also available in a Bison Books edition.