Windshield Wilderness (eBook)

Cars, Roads, and Nature in Washington's National Parks

David Louter (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2009
288 Seiten
University of Washington Press (Verlag)
978-0-295-98984-6 (ISBN)

Infos

In his engaging book Windshield Wilderness, David Louter explores the relationship between automobiles and national parks, and how together they have shaped our ideas of wilderness. National parks, he argues, did not develop as places set aside from the modern world, but rather came to be known and appreciated through technological progress in the form of cars and roads, leaving an enduring legacy of knowing nature through machines.With a lively style and striking illustrations, Louter traces the history of Washington States national parks -- Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades -- to illustrate shifting ideas of wilderness as scenic, as roadless, and as ecological reserve. He reminds us that we cannot understand national parks without recognizing that cars have been central to how people experience and interpret their meaning, and especially how they perceive them as wild places.Windshield Wilderness explores what few histories of national parks address: what it means to view parks from the road and through a windshield. Building upon recent interpretations of wilderness as a cultural construct rather than as a pure state of nature, the story of autos in parks presents the preservation of wilderness as a dynamic and nuanced process.Windshield Wilderness illuminates the difficulty of separating human-modified landscapes from natural ones, encouraging us to recognize our connections with nature in national parks.

Autor

lt;P>David Louter is a historian with the National Park Service in Seattle, Washington.

Inhalt

MapsForeword by William CrononAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Nature as We See It1. Glaciers and Gasoline: Mount Rainier as a Windshield Wilderness2. The Highway in Nature: Mount Rainier and the National Park Service3. Wilderness with a View: Olympic and the New Roadless Park4. A Road Runs Through It: A Wilderness Park for the North Cascades5. Wilderness Threshold: North Cascades and a New Concept of National ParksEpilogueNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.11.2009
• Reihe/Serie: Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
• Reihe/Serie: Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
• Vorwort: William Cronon
• Verlagsort: Seattle
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik
• ISBN-10: 0-295-98984-X / 029598984X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-295-98984-6 / 9780295989846