The Book of the National Parks: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Book of the National Parks, credited to Robert Sterling Yard, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

Librivox recording of The Book of the National Parks by Robert Sterling Yard. Read by J. M. Smallheer. Robert Sterling Yard was an American writer, journalist, and wilderness activist. Born in Haverstraw, New York, Yard graduated from Princeton University and spent the first twenty years of his career in the editing and publishing business. In 1915, he was recruited by his friend Stephen Mather to help publicize the need for an independent national park agency. Their numerous publications were part of a movement that resulted in legislative support for a National Park Service (NPS) in 1916. Yard worked to promote the national parks as well as educate Americans about their use. Creating high standards based on aesthetic ideals for park selection, he also opposed commercialism and industrialization of what he called "America's masterpieces". In 1935, he became one of the eight founding members of The Wilderness Society and acted as its first president from 1937 until his death eight years later. Yard is now considered an important figure in the modern wilderness movement. In the preface to this book, published in 1919, he writes, "In offering the American public a carefully studied outline of its national park system, I have two principal objects. The one is to describe and differentiate the national parks in a manner which will enable the reader to appreciate their importance, scope, meaning, beauty, manifold uses and enormous value to individual and nation. The other is to use these parks, in which Nature is writing in large plain lines the story of America's making, as examples illustrating the several kinds of scenery, and what each kind means in terms of world building; in other words, to translate the practical findings of science into unscientific phrase for the reader's increased profit and pleasure, not only in his national parks but in all other scenic places great and small." (summary from wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Book of the National Parks
• Author credits: Robert Sterling Yard
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 30
• Listed recording duration: 10:15:15

Catalogue topics

• nature
• America
• National Parks
• Grand Canyon
• Yellowstone
• Yosemite
• geology
• scenery

Opening tracks: first 24 of 30

1. 00 - Preface — 4:10
2. 01 - On the Appreciation of Scenery — 22:41
3. 02 - The National Parks of the United States — 23:00
4. 03 - The Granite National Parks - Granite's Part in Scenery — 4:27
5. 04 - Yosemite, The Incomparable — 24:18
6. 05 - Yosemite, The Incomparable, continued — 25:39
7. 06 - The Proposed Roosevelt National Park — 36:18
8. 07 - The Heart of the Rockies — 37:33
9. 08 - McKinley, Giant of Giants — 20:54
10. 09 - Lafayette and the East — 14:53
11. 10 - The Volcanic National Parks - On the Volcano in Scenery — 4:57
12. 11 - Lassen Peak and Mount Katmai — 16:38
13. 12 - Mount Rainier, Icy Octopus — 18:46
14. 13 - Mount Rainier, Icy Octopus, continued — 19:14
15. 14 - Crater Lake's Bowl of Indigo — 25:37
16. 15 - Yellowstone, A Volcanic Interlude — 23:11
17. 16 - Yellowstone, A Volcanic Interlude, continued — 18:17
18. 17 - Three Monsters of Hawaii — 22:54
19. 18 - The Sedimentary National Parks - On Sedimentary Rock in Scenery — 4:52
20. 19 - Glaciered Peaks and Painted Shales — 25:43
21. 20 - Glaciered Peaks and Painted Shales, continued — 25:58
22. 21 - Rock Records of a Vanished Race — 31:52
23. 22 - The Healing Waters — 17:47
24. 23 - The Grand Canyon and Our National Monuments - On the Scenery of the Southwest — 9:59

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.