ALFRED RUNTE traces his interest in the national parks to a family camping trip in 1959. Twenty years later, and having earned his PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he published the first edition of National Parks: The American Experience. His noted sequel, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness, sealed Runte's reputation as America's preeminent historian of the national parks. A forthcoming Chinese translation of National Parks further speaks to his influence around the globe. "Civilization is the problem parks solve," Runte concludes. Where there is civilization there has followed the need for parks, whose protection, both here and abroad, continues to be advanced by this timeless history.