| Book Review | Environmental History, 9.4

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

Book Review

Lines on the Land: Writers, Art, and the National Parks. By Scott Herring. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004. xi + 199 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $49.50, paper $16.50.
Early writers and artists struggling to present the scenic magnificence of the western national parks worried that they were not equal to the task. Sights like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yosemite Valley left these visitors awestruck. Writers like John Muir and artists like Thomas Moran sought ways to become one with the places they represented, to understand them to the deepest degree possible. The products of their interpretations contained extravagant, even religious praise. The resulting writings and art works captured the public's imagination, as they still do for many Americans today. Such nature interpreters created what author Scott Herring called the "canon" of the national parks.	1
Later, however, the narratives of authors and artists took on a different tone as they surveyed and interpreted the same parks. Some major figures like Ernest Hemingway chose to ignore the national parks entirely. But authors like Edward Abbey and Rick Bass and artists like Roger Minnick are at best bemused and more commonly outraged by what they see. According to Herring, that anger stems from the vast gulf between what the canon presents and the crowded, commercial recreation places that the parks have become.	. . .

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