Like John Muir, Al Runte has felt the siren call of our saved—and sacred—places, and, like John Muir, he has found a way to share their glories with power and poetry. This is a sensitive, well-written history of our land and the complicated people who call it home.

– Ken Burns, filmmaker

Alfred Runte brilliantly demonstrates why he is considered one of America's preeminent environmental historians. Not only does National Parks sing with inspiration, but it is the most trustworthy synthesis scholars have on the American preservation movement. Everybody should read this marvelous study. Highly recommended!

– Douglas Brinkley, Rice University

Congratulations to Al Runte on the fourth edition of National Parks: The American Experience. Al understands and captures not only the history of our national parks but also their importance to the United States and the world. From Al's childhood experiences in national parks to all the research he has done on their history and value, his fourth edition captures why our national parks are America's best idea.

– Fran P. Mainella, 16th director of the National Park Service, and visiting scholar, Clemson University

Having had a role in the beginnings of this important book, it is an honor to celebrate its fifth edition. Al Runte reminds us how dramatically the valuation of national parks has changed in little more than a century. Read it and you will learn why national parks can be considered a distinctively American idea, indeed a contribution of our nation to world civilization.

– Roderick Frazier Nash, author of Wilderness and the American Mind

By far the best book ever written about our national parks.

– Harry Butowsky, National Park Service Historian (ret.), and co-founder, npshistory

Alfred Runte gives a comprehensive discussion of America's parks. National Parks is a choice and solidly recommended addition to natural history collections.

– Midwest Book Review

In this highly acclaimed history of the national parks, Alfred Runte takes us from Yosemite and Yellowstone to Alaska on a journey of discovery of the American land. Also a prominent adviser and on-camera personality in the Ken Burns documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Runte reminds us what it means to have national parks in a country equally committed to economic achievement. In this fourth edition, there are many new photographs and some old favorites—including an eight-page color portfolio. The text has been revisited in its entirety and a majority of the chapters extensively revised. The book concludes with a hard-hitting assessment about the future, noting that civilization is the problem parks solve. If the park idea America started is to survive, the world must continue to embrace it, too.

– El Paisano