You are here

NPT Reviews of Books and other Material

A collection of book reviews to help you pick the perfect read for your national park escape

Review | National Park Maps

As nice as those folding park maps you get when driving into a national park are, trying to collect them all and organize them for your road trips can be a challenge, to say the least. sure, you could punch holes in them and organize them in a three-ring binder, but an easier approach to exploring the parks is National Park Maps, a forthcoming atlas of the 63 "national parks."

Review | Headed Into The Wind: A Memoir

Jack Loeffler has explored the Southwest landscape and come to see it as “an integrated biogeographical system” in which Indigenous people “developed profound spiritual relationships with their homelands.” Avowing that he is not a religious man in the conventional sense, he has come to a recognition “of the sacred within the flow of Nature,” and this book explains how he got there.

Review | Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Richard Nixon, And The Great Environmental Awakening

One of historian Douglas Brinkley’s “fortes,” as he puts it, is presidential history, and one project has been to focus on the conservation and environmental records of presidential players in 20th century America.

Review | This Contested Land: The Storied Past And Uncertain Future Of America’s National Monuments

McKenzie Long is a rock climber, graphic designer, and writer who, inspired by the “contest” over the Bears Ears National Monument where she loved to climb in the Indian Creek basin, decided to visit a select group of national monuments to gain a deeper understanding of why and how they are contested.” Her travels take her from Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument to Hawaii, just beyond which is the vast Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Review | Olmsted And Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, And The National Park Idea

When and why did the idea of national parks emerge in American history? Several creation myths, or “campfire tales” as Diamant and Carr call them, have been embraced by historians and government officials. Among them are the discussion around the campfire at Madison Junction on the Yellowstone Plateau during the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition broaching the idea, which was then promoted by Langford on behalf of the Northern Pacific Railroad and resulted in the creation of Yellowstone as the world’s first national park.

Review | Requiem for America’s Best Idea: National Parks In The Era Of Climate Change

I find the title interesting because a requiem is a dirge, an expression of sadness and mourning, often a lamentation for the dead. Yochim knew his time was short, was he in such a mood as he considered the future of the national parks? I think not, but he knew they were jeopardy.

Review | Was It Worth It? A Wilderness Warrior’s Long Trail Home

There are many Doug Peacocks: Grizzly Man, the guy who could spend months living with grizzly bears in the wilderness of Montana and Wyoming and write great books about bears and his adventures with them; the Green Beret medic in Vietnam who sought solace in wild places and became a “warrior” in defense of those places; friend of Ed Abbey who made him into a fictional character named George Washington Heyduke in his novel The Monkey Wrench Gang; award-winning filmmaker; and above all, fearless and tireless advocate for wilderness and wildlife.

Review | Our Common Ground: A History Of America’s Public Lands

The title of John D. Leshy’s political history of America’s public lands, Our Common Ground, introduces the central fact of the story he invites us to read. The American federal public land estate is our land, a shared heritage of more than 600 million acres owned collectively by the American people and managed by the federal government. Yet despite a vast literature on public lands, which he points out focuses mostly on categories such as national parks or forests, much of the American public does not have a comprehensive understanding of how they came to have such a public land legacy.

INN Member

The easiest way to explore RV-friendly National Park campgrounds.

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

Here’s the definitive guide to National Park System campgrounds where RVers can park their rigs.

Our app is packed with RVing- specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 national parks.

You’ll also find stories about RVing in the parks, tips helpful if you’ve just recently become an RVer, and useful planning suggestions.

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

FREE for iPhones and Android phones.