Excellent up-to-date historical review of Yellowstone
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This was a "can't put it down" book, unusual for a historical treatment which often, it seems to me, avoids cutting to the crux of a matter and rambles on and on. I particularly like the authors willingness to tangle horns with Chase on the elk controversy and the National Park Service on the Langford "birth of the national parks" campfire. I'm writing a book on the national parks with a little history and while I was delighted to see Chase lambasted I was shocked about the debunking of the campfire story. A history which came out about the same time as this book - Sellar's Preserving Nature in the National Parks - retains the story, and I had read Bartlett, and though it was years ago, also Haines, without zeroing in on the "myth assertion". I had to go back and attach a big caveat to the story, which I feel much better about now. It's a wonderful book; keep them coming (looks like the wolf story, after Casper, is going to be a story crying for a proper historian someday).
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