Customer Reviews

Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness

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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).

`Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in knowing the "Yellowstone story" at a deeper level than the interpretive signs or tourist pamphlets. This would be excellent (and easy) "pre-reading" for anyone contemplating a first trip to Yellowstone....but it is also a fascinating and sometimes surprising eye-opener for someone (like me) who was somewhat familiar with Yellowstone already. From the perspective only a former Yellowstone employee and prolific writer/researcher could bring, Schullery persuasively argues-not unlike the "new western historians" in their iconoclastic reassessment of the American west and its history)-that Yellowstone is not so much a place as a process...a process of how we as Americans define a national park. Schullery's measured tour through this process provides a sobering reminder to inveterate tree-huggers like me that a national park is not a wilderness area, as much as I might like it to be in terms of "hands off" preservation. Schullery's approach is matter-of-fact, methodically researched (I actually enjoyed reading the copious "notes" section separately after having finished the book) and myth-busting at times (e.g. that surprisingly, the total number of developed acres in Yellowstone has actually decreased during the last 40 years rather than increased). He doesn't even spare himself, needling enthusiastic fly-fishers like himself with the sad-but-true fact that if we treated the ungulates of Yellowstone the same way fishermen do a Yellowstone trout (which was probably introduced in the first place rather than native), we would be cited for abusing the wildlife. A very readable and important book.

This is a review of Yellowstone history from a system-wide and ecological perspective. It is well written and provides a great deal of factual information. It presents well thought out conclusions. It is balanced; not overly slanted toward the National Park Service, but not overly critical. The book is extremely well researched. The stories of historical characters and events add much to the book. The universe of Yellowstone experts hold several differing views on the proper wildlife numbers that should be allowed in Yellowstone. Schullery fits into the group that favors using historical stocking as a baseline. Those inclined to an agronomy baseline will question some of the conclusions drawn. One of the other reviewers called this book an "easy pre-read." I disagree; it is not difficult to read, but it does deserve study.

I read this book in a week and was quite impressed with the breadth of history covered in 260 something pages, not counting notes. I was glad to see that this historical account began with an "anthropological" perspective by recounting the known presence of Native American tribes prior to the EuroAmerican "discovery" of the place and the manner in which they were extricated from the ecosystem. I was also impressed with the historical information relating the misuse, management practices and policies that affected the life of the park once it was established and what changes have been implemented in recent years. The notes following the text were very helpful in leading me to other books and records that I would like to examine. A fine book that I purchased after reading the library copy!

This book presents itself as a history of Yellowstone. However, it's also an extended reflection on the park by someone who loves it dearly, someone who has worked for the National Park Service in Yellowstone for years and is very knowledgeable about the park. Schullery writes very well, and the book is a pleasure to read.

The most striking characteristic of this book, in comparison with others, is how remarkably even-handed it is. Schullery takes controversial issues such as fire management, elk shooting, wolf reintroduction, and brucellosis-infected bison and presents them in an even-handed way, sympathetic to both sides. He recognizes that most people go to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon, eat, and go shopping; that's not what he likes to do, but he isn't critical. Yet, somehow, he manages to cock an eyebrow here and there and make you rethink a position that you had previously held quite firmly.

This would be a great book to read before a visit to Yellowstone, or as something to put in your pack while you're there. Highly recommended.

Combine history, scholarship, and a survey of nature and ecological issues and you have an uncommon history of Yellowstone that examines the political and cultural influences on the park's development and management over the decades. SEARCHING FOR YELLOWSTONE: ECOLOGY AND WONDER IN THE LAST WILDERNESS offers up chapters packed with true stories of environmental encounters and wonders. Readers with affection for Yellowstone will find these early encounters riveting.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

It's difficult, while standing in a crowd in front of Old Faithful, to tell what Yellowstone really means to us. We often define or judge the park based on our expectations of it, but its real value in many ways hovers far beyond our narrow expectations.

In Searching for Yellowstone, newly available in paperback, consummate park historian Paul Schullery slices through human fanfare and rhetoric that surrounds so many park issues today and traces Yellowstone's true history in a methodical and understated way that lets the park speak for itself for a change. If you come to this book with an open mind, Schullery may open it even wider.

History resides in the heart of every National Park but in some, think Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Yellowstone, that history seems wrapped so deeply in controversy it is all but impossible to sift through it. One is left with either taking the interpretive signs at face value or reading books so steeped in self-absorbed author-based agendas there is no way to discern fact from bison manure. Paul Schullery's book is different. Schullery is willing to take on controversy, present both sides (if they are valid), and move on with all-but-no emotion. This book made Yellowstone for me.

On my fourth trip to Yellowstone this last month I read Searching for Yellowstone during my five days in the park. The book is well-written, flows nicely, and is very well researched (skim the 55 pages of notes and references at the end for an idea). Schullery takes on the big questions (Elk, forest fires, who found the park, native uses, and what the park is supposed to mean). He truly allows us to "search for Yellowstone". While reading, wandering through the geysers and hiking the hills, I used his text to understand what this park has come to mean and what it should mean in the future. I think his whole section on what buildings should be preserved puts a lot of the controversy in context. Really? Preserve the strip mall at Canyon?

"Historically, the educational metaphor most commonly applied to Yellowstone has been that of a great outdoor laboratory in which the workings of nature are exposed for our study and edification. In fact Yellowstone has become a sort of university, where we are the students and the landscape is the faculty and where an amazing array of human interests are tested."

Paul's book is the perfect guide for exploring Yellowstone a little deeper.