Megan Kate Nelson, "Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America" (Scribner, 2022)

New Books in Indigenous Studies · Mar 1, 2022 · 42m

From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the propulsive and vividly told story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park amid the nationwide turmoil and racial violence of the Reconstruction era.

Each year nearly four million people visit Yellowstone National Park—one of the most popular of all national parks—but few know the fascinating and complex historical context in which it was established. In late July 1871, the geologist-explorer Ferdinand Hayden led a team of scientists through a narrow canyon into Yellowstone Basin, entering one…