National Parks and the Supreme Court
Groundbreaking Legal Battles
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Nevada Press
Publishing:11th Aug '26
£35.00
This title is due to be published on 11th August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Many Americans revere their national parks as places of natural beauty and cultural significance—but few realize how often these landscapes have been shaped by the courtroom as much as by conservation policy. With more than 3,500 lawsuits involving the National Park Service, litigation has defined, defended, and sometimes even threatened the character of the parks. Without these legal fights, the Gettysburg battlefield might be covered with strip malls and the Grand Canyon reduced to a mining site.
This book examines five landmark Supreme Court cases involving national parks—Gettysburg, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and the National Mall. Each chapter blends legal analysis with historical context, tracing the origins of the parks and the disputes that brought them before the nation's highest court. Spanning nearly a century, these cases reveal how the Court has shaped park policy, land use, Native American rights, water law, and free speech.
Through these pivotal decisions, National Parks and the Supreme Court offers a new lens on the contested terrain of the national parks, where legal, environmental, and cultural values collide. By exploring the courts' influence on public lands, it deepens our understanding of the complexities of managing America's most cherished landscapes.
"All readers, and not just lawyers, will enjoy Carla Mattix's engaging and informative exploration of five U.S. Supreme Court decisions that helped lay the foundation for all the public lands we enjoy today."—John Leshy, author of Our Common Ground: A History of America's Public Lands
"While there are thousands of books covering every aspect of the national parks, none deal with the specific topic of the book—the key Supreme Court decisions that have shaped the National Park Service. This is a very significant contribution to the literature of the National Park Service, offering careful and complete research, with ample sources." —T. Destry Jarvis, former National Park Service Assistant Director for External Affairs, co-author of National Parks Forever: Fifty Years of Fighting and a Case for Independence
"Mattix is an expert on Supreme Court cases involving the National Park Service. Her writing is clear, well-organized, and draws extensively on legal records." —Ruth M. Alexander, professor of history emerita, Colorado State University, author of Democracy's Mountain: Longs Peak and the Unfulfilled Promises of America's National Parks
"While national parks are well loved among the public, few consider the role litigation has played, and continues to play, in the management of these special places. Attorney Carla Mattix has produced a fascinating study of Supreme Court decisions that have shaped National Park Service policies. National Parks and the Supreme Court delivers an accounting of five cases that reveal the foundational legal framework for federal preservation of historic places, and the increasing complexity of managing the over four hundred units now administered by the Service. This deeply researched analysis of the court's response to disparate legal issues belongs in the library of every national park enthusiast." —Dwight T. Pitcaithley, chief historian, National Park Service 1995-2005; author of The U.S. Constitution and Secession: A Documentary Anthology of Slavery and White Supremacy
ISBN: 9781647792589
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
256 pages