Social reform through parks: the American Civic Association's program for a better America

The American Civic Association, an urban, elite organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, provided a major impetus to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916. The association had actively involved itself with national parks for nearly a decade before 1916 despite the fact that most members lived far from the national parks in the West. This article argues that the concern of the American Civic Association for national parks sprang from its conviction that parks comprised vehicles for reforming society. They dismissed the differences in scale between national and urban parks as irrelevant to the ability of parks to affect society. All properly organized parks offered means to improve America. They characterized the reformed society that would follow on the heels of a national park system as healthy, wealthy, equal and patriotic, the same qualities that they attributed to a post-urban park society. The significance of the national parks for the American Civic Association, therefore, came from the presumed ability of these parks, like all parks, to foster a better America.     

The Origins of New Deal Agricultural Policy: Interest Groups' Role in Policy Formation

In its examination of New Deal agricultural programs, this article takes issue with the pluralist, state-centered, and class-centered approaches which ignore the complexity of these policy programs' development and implementation as well as the role of organized interests. This over simplification is rectified through a comparison of the AAA and FSA programs, which demonstrates the primary role played in these programs' existance by organized interests both outside and within, the state.     

Book reviews

CHINA AND THE OVERSEAS CHINESE. A STUDY OF PEKING'S CHANGING POLICY, 1949–1970. Stephen FitzGerald. Cambridge University Press, 1972. 268 pp. £5.90.

CHINA'S WORLD: THE FOREIGN POLICY OF A DEVELOPING STATE. J. D. Simmonds. Australian National University Press, 1970. 0–7081–0694–3. 200 pp. $6.95.

THE CONVENTIONS OF CRISIS: A STUDY IN DIPLOMATIC MANAGEMENT. Coral Bell. Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1971. 0–19–285054–7. 131 pp. $3.40 paper.

FROM CRISIS TO CRISIS: PAKISTAN 1962–1969. Herbert Feldmon. Oxford University Press, London, 1972. 0–19–215192–4. 340 pp. $17.10.

INDIAN REVOLUTIONARIES ABROAD. A. C. Bose. Bha Rati Bhawan, Patna, 1971. 268 pp. Rs. 30.00.

THE AUSTRALIAN‐NEW ZEALAND AGREEMENT 1944. Robin Kay (ed.). A. R. Shearer, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, 1972. 297 pp. $NZ7.50.

PASSING FOR WHITE. A STUDY OF RACIAL ASSIMILATION IN A SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOL. Graham Watson. Tavistock, London, 1970. 422–75470–6. 130 pp. $2.70, Social Science paperback, $7.10 hard‐cover.

ABORIGINES AND SETTLERS: THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE (1788–1939). Henry Reynolds. Cassell, Melbourne, 1972. 422–75470–6. $3.75.

WORLD ARMAMENTS AND DISARMAMENT: SIPRI YEARBOOK 1972. Almqvist and Wiksell, for SIPRI (Stockhohn International Peace Research Institute), Stockholm 1972. 91–85114–12‐X. 611 pp. $US15.00.

THE PROBLEM OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. Volume V: THE PREVENTION OF CBW. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm and Humanities Press, New York, 1971. 287 pp. $13 hard cover.

IN THE MINDS OF MEN: UNESCO 1946–1971. Gian Franco Pompei and others. UNESCO, Paris, 1972. 319 pp. $3.35 paper.

PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL AIR TRANSPORT POLICY. Paul Heller. New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1972. 50 pp.

BRAZIL: THE PEOPLE AND THE POWER. M. Arraes. Pelican Latin American Library. $1.35.