John Clayton (9)

Clayton covers the natural, administrative and political history of America's first national park in a fine read. One chapter is dedicated to Ansel Adams who captured the park's beauty in his black and white photos, even though he preferred Yosemite National Park over Yellowstone. Another chapter covers the huge wildfires of 1988 and how what seemed so unusual at the time is now commonplace in the forested western United States. He points out the fallacy of early park supporters trying to portray the park as empty and rarely visited by Indians -- thus, no big deal making it off limits to everyone but visitors. We now know that assertion to be untrue, and the creation of the park displaced use of the area by several tribes.… (meer)