The Hour of Land

A Personal Topography of America's National Parks

New York : Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

Format: Book

Edition: First edition.

Description: 395 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

America's national parks are breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why more than 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now Terry Tempest Williams presents The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, an exploration of what they mean to us and what we mean to them. From the Grand Tetons in Wyoming to Acadia in Maine to Big Bend in Texas and more, Williams creates a series of lyrical portraits that illuminate the unique grandeur of each place. Part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique, The Hour of Land is a meditation and a manifesto on why wild lands matter to the soul of America.

Contents: America's national parks: by definition -- Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming: keep promise -- Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota: all this is what the wind knows -- Acadia National Park, Maine: the stones, the steel, the galaxies -- Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania: there is no prevailing -- Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa: death yes but as a gathering -- Big Bend National Park, Texas: any wind will tell you -- Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska: there is no private space -- Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida and Mississippi: what more shall we do to others. To otherness -- Canyonlands National Park, Utah: we are in some strange wind says the wind -- Alcatraz Island, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California: the bodies are all gone from it, the purchases have been made -- Glacier National Park, Montana: it is so extreme this taking-the-place of, this standing-in-for, this disappearing of all the witnesses -- César E. Chávez National Monument, California, and the future: I say to myself keep on--it will not be the end--not yet.