The National Parks: America’s Best Idea Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature’s most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska – The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.
A Monumental Documentary on the History of US National Parks
Ken Burns’ documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009) is designed to run on PBS television in six episodes of about two hours each. The documentary doesn’t give viewers much of a feel for what it’s like to visit a national park; instead, the focus is on the history of US national parks from their inception in the 19th century up through the 1970s. Burns integrates his coverage of the parks into the broad sweep of American history from the vanishing frontier to the advent of the automobile to the Great Depression to the post-World War II boom in tourism.
Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon are old and popular, so they are central to Burns’ history. There are 55 other national parks, and several of these play significant roles in the documentary, including Mesa Verde (Colorado), Everglades (Florida), Great Smoky Mountains (North Carolina and Tennessee), Acadia (Maine) and Denali (Alaska). But Burns isn’t trying to promote specific attractions; he wants to exalt nature in general and warn against commercial, logging, mining and ranching interests.