Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness

by Alfred Runte

Book by Runte, Alfred

Genres: Nonfiction

319 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Alfred Runte writes for a national following on the meaning and management of protected landscapes. Born and raised in Binghamton, New York, in the upper Susquehanna River Valley, he became the youngest board member of the Susquehanna Conservation Council. While fighting with others to preserve the river, he earned his B.A. from Harpur College of the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University). His Ph.D. is from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he helped build the Environmental Studies Program. A childhood camping trip from coast to coast (the family covered 10,000 miles) inspired Al’s resolve to write about the national parks. Now in its fourth edition, his first book, National Parks: The American Experience, continues to guide conservationists around the world in the establishment and management of protected lands.
Al’s hands-on research further includes four years as a seasonal ranger in Yosemite National Park. Visitor enthusiasm for his talks inspired two books, Trains of Discovery: Western Railroads and the National Parks, and Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness. In 1991, Al was centennial historian for the U.S. Forest Service, celebrating the nation’s first forest reserves (1891 1991), for which he produced the exhibit catalogue, Public Lands, Public Heritage: The National Forest Idea.
In 2003, Al helped launch Natureza & Conservação, a new international journal of ecology published in Brazil. He was then invited to deliver the keynote address at the Fourth Brazilian Congress on Parks and Protected Areas, held in 2004 in Curitiba. “It was humbling,” Al notes. “Eighteen hundred people listened expectantly to my recommendations for the future of parks in their country. What could I tell them but to follow their hearts and learn from our mistakes?”
In recent years, Al has busied himself with saving railroads as effective allies of open space, a contribution he details in Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation. An expanded fifth edition of Trains of Discovery, now including the national parks of the East, also appeared in 2011 with a new subtitle, Railroads and the Legacy of Our National Parks.
Al’s hobby, of sorts, is writing op-eds for national newspapers. He has also been a guest on Nightline, The Today Show, Forty-Eight Hours, the History Channel, and Travel Channel, and in numerous PBS documentaries. He works out of his basement office in Seattle, supervised by George and Gracie, the family cats. His wife Christine is registrar at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, renowned for its collections of fighter and commercial aircraft.
In April 2011, Al was elected to membership in the College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame at Illinois State University (his master’s degree institution) “in recognition of exemplary achievement” as a teacher and public scholar.

Reviews

[Robert Herold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was honored to receive a review copy of Alfred Runte’s revised and updated Yosemite, The Embattled Wilderness. As a fellow author, I am always impressed reading Dr. Runte’s intelligent and powerful prose, especially so when he’s addressing an issue that acts as a metaphor for much of the environmental movement.
Yosemite was the nation’s first National Park and was an attempt to preserve the area’s natural splendor while still allowing the public to appreciate its beauty. The example of how Niagara Falls was commercialized showed the alternative. Yosemite became the model for Yellowstone and the rest of the National Park system, and yet it has not been a static preserve, nor has it ever been. For example, the native people yearly burned the valley to provide open meadows for hunting and to promote the black oak, and their desired acorns. Ever since the park’s inception, there has been the push and pull of demands for public use and commercial interests against the need to preserve the elements of wilderness. Dr. Runte chronicles this battle and immeasurably enriches our appreciation for the park and how it has managed to survive at all.
The future of Yosemite, as with much of the natural world, is up to us. It requires a disciplined plan and the will to see it through. As Yosemite, The Embattled Wilderness highlights, it is not an easy issue, but with real world consequences. This outstanding book is for anyone with an interest in the environment, history, and/or Yosemite in particular. It’s that good!

[Matt McBrien · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work is a bit dated now, as it was published in 1990. However, it is a worthwhile overview of the entire history of Yosemite National Park. It deals primarily with the priority of development and catering to tourism in the park over preservation.

I think, at times, the author takes his desire for preservation too far and doesn't consider visitors important at all. He also doesn't go too in depth on reasons for certain development and how high tourist numbers might allow better funding for greater preservation -- both elsewhere in the park and throughout the National Park Service. I certainly haven't investigated the NPS funding, but park fees must go somewhere, right? I wish the author had considered these things and discussed them in the book.

[Kasey Lawson · Rating 1 out of 5]

A comprehensively researched tome firmly grounded in scholarship that provides historical perspective for the decisions that resulted in overdevelopment and pollution of the countries most revered National Park.

Also, a mind-numbingly boring read. Quite a feat considering the subject matter.