| Book Review | Environmental History, 9.4

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 9.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The State Park Movement in America: A Critical Review. By Ney C. Landrum. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. xv + 288 pp. Illustrations, selected bibliography, index. $44.95.
After a distinguished career as director of Florida's state parks, Ney Landrum has written his valedictory. In doing so, he highlights a gap in the historiography of state parks. Unfortunately this work, as he acknowledges, does little to address this need (although his publisher would have potential readers believe otherwise). Given the dearth of studies of individual parks or park systems, a synthetic history of American state parks would be difficult, even for a practiced historian. Instead, Landrum attempts to identify a nationwide "movement" to preserve and make accessible a variety of landscapes.	1
As local adjuncts to better-known but less accessible national parks, state parks, Landrum writes, have protected scenic resources and provided recreational space and spiritual uplift. He distinguishes between "user-oriented" parks, built around artificial features (e.g., tennis courts) and "resource-based" parks—landscapes of notable scenic value, including historic sites (p. 21). Only the latter, he contends, are the proper domain of state park administrators.	. . .

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