Randall Ok. Wilson, the writer of “A Place Known as Yellowstone: The Epic Historical past of the World’s First Nationwide Park,” has been named the winner of the New York Historic’s 2025 Barbara and David Zalaznick E-book Prize, which is given yearly for the very best work of American historical past or biography.
In a information launch, the historic society described Yellowstone Nationwide Park, which opened in 1872 and is visited immediately by roughly 4.5 million individuals a yr, as “one of many few entities able to bridging ideological divides in the USA.” Even the identify exerts a strong cultural pull: Lately, the tv present “Yellowstone” grew to become a shock hit.
However Wilson, a professor of environmental research at Gettysburg School in Pennsylvania, additionally emphasizes the way it has lengthy been a website of battle, whether or not between Nineteenth-century settlers and Native American nations or between Twentieth-century Individuals with completely different concepts about steadiness wilderness preservation and public entry.
Wilson’s guide, printed by Counterpoint, contains dialogue of bison herds, land disputes and wildfire administration. However it additionally options made-for-Hollywood moments at Yellowstone and past. In a single chapter, he describes the scene in 1943 when the actor Wallace Beery, veteran of many westerns, dressed up like a cowboy and led a gaggle of armed ranchers and their cattle in a protest in opposition to the newly established Jackson Gap Nationwide Monument in Wyoming.
In a evaluate in The Los Angeles Occasions, Lorraine Berry known as the guide “nice studying,” saying, “Wilson’s expertise as a storyteller shines by in turning dry bureaucratic bumbling and crony corruption right into a deal with particular person exploits and entertaining tales.”
In an announcement, the Historic’s board chair, Agnes Hsu-Tang, mentioned Wilson’s guide had additionally “redefined the idea of a biography,” telling “a extra encompassing historical past about America than most biographies of Individuals.”
The prize, which comes with a money reward of $50,000, honors books which might be accessible to a normal readership. It typically focuses on works of political historical past centered on presidents, leaders and different outstanding figures, however has additionally honored work with broader themes that resonate within the present second. In 2021, a yr into the coronavirus pandemic, the winner was “The Yr of Peril: America in 1942,” by Tracy Campbell, which challenged nostalgic reminiscences of the World Conflict II years as a time of unbroken nationwide unity.
Different previous winners of the prize embody Alan Taylor, Beverly Gage and Jonathan Eig.
