Now in a fully updated edition, this invaluable reference work is a fundamental resource for scholars, students, conservationists, and citizens interested in America's national park system. The extensive collection of documents illustrates the system's creation, development, and management. The documents include laws that established and shaped the system; policy statements on park management; Park Service self-evaluations; and outside studies by a range of scientists, conservation organizations, private groups, and businesses. A new appendix includes summaries of pivotal court cases that have further interpreted the Park Service mission.

Assessing fifty years of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), passed in 1966, this volume examines the impact of this key piece of legislation on heritage practices in the United States. The editors and contributing authors summarize how we approached compliance in the past, how we approach it now, and how we may approach it in the future. This volume presents how federal, state, tribal entities, and contractors in different regions address compliance issues; examines half a century of changes in the level of inventory, evaluation and mitigation practices, and determinations of eligibility; describes how the federal and state agencies have changed their approach over half a century; the Act is examined from the Federal, SHPO, THPO, Advisory Council, and regional perspectives. Using case studies authored by well-known heritage professionals based in universities, private practice, tribes, and government, this volume provides a critical and constructive examination of the NHPA and its future prospects. Archaeology students and scholars, as well heritage professionals, should find this book of interest.

Examines the history, structure, and function of the National Park Service.