“Welsh provides the historical lens through which national parks are estab-lished by expertly combining disciplines such as ecology, international relations, human and physical geography, and natural history.”
—Geographical Review
“An impressive amount of archival research has gone into creating the book, which allows Welsh to give his historical overview dynamism rather than what one may expect to quickly turn into a dry recounting instead. . . . Welsh sets his book apart from similar historiographical works on other parks and gives Big Bend’s reality as a borderland park its due. As the recent border wall construction in another borderlands park, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, has shown, such a perspective remains ever-relevant.”
—H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences
"Above all, the book’s greatest contribution is undoubtedly its deep dive into the recurrent hope of creating an international peace park, one that was central to the park idea in the 1930s but that was repeatedly sidelined by the contingencies of time. . . . Welsh’s book is a critical addition to any comprehensive library on the history of one of our greatest national parks.”
—David W. Keller, Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"In the spirit of Walter Prescott Webb, Edward Abbey, and Terry Tempest Williams, Michael Welsh evokes the spiritual grandeur of the expansive Big Bend National Park in this detailed study of the region, skillfully set within the historical context of U.S.-Mexican relations, the contretemps of Texan history, and the institutional frameworks of agencies on both sides of the border.”
—Evan Ward, associate professor of history, Brigham Young University
“The struggle to establish the area as a national park is almost a century long and Michael Welsh has captured the colorful administrative past in this new work, Big Bend National Park. This tale is woven skillfully into seven chapters that reveal the controversial nature of managing a complex ecological landscape in a desert environment.”
—Thomas C Alex, NPS Archaeologist, and retired Cultural Resource Program Manager