Some of the world's greatest treasures are hidden away and have not been seen publicly for decades, sometimes for centuries. Others have been destroyed. They are not stolen property. They are simply private property, and no matter their public significance, the public has no claims on them. A capricious owner of Leonardo da Vinci's notebook would be perfectly within his rights to throw it in the fireplace, as James Joyce's grandson did with letters from the author's daughter, or Warren Harding's widow did with her husband's Teapot Dome papers. This is a book about such rights and why they are...

Beloved by academic and general readers alike, Mountains Without Handrails, Joseph L. Sax's thought- provoking treatise on America's national parks, remains as relevant today as when first published in 1980. Focusing on the long- standing and bitter battles over recreational use of parklands, Sax proposes a novel scheme for the protection and management of America's national parks.