The story of how America’s public lands—our city parks, national forests, and wilderness areas—came into being can be traced to a few conservation pioneers and protegees who shaped policy and advocated for open spaces.

Jeffrey Ryan covers the nearly one hundred–year period between 1865 (when Frederick Law Olmsted contributed to the creation of Yosemite as a park and created its management plan) to the signing of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Olmsted influenced Pinchot, who became the first head of the National Forest Service, and in turn, Pinchot hired the foresters who became the founders of The Wilderness Society and creators of the Wilderness Act itself.

Hardcover. 232 pages. Stackpole Books, 2022.