The idea that America's most spectacular landscapes belong to everyone, not to private owners or royalty, drives this six-part series from Ken Burns and writer-producer Dayton Duncan. The story starts with Yellowstone, set aside as the first national park in 1872, and follows the fight to protect Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and dozens of other sites over the next century and a half. John Muir's campaigns and Theodore Roosevelt's push to expand federal protections get sustained attention, alongside lesser-known figures: a Black soldier troop that patrolled Yosemite before rangers existed, and the immigrant and working-class visitors who turned the parks into a shared national habit rather than an elite retreat. Archival photographs, historic film, and interviews with historians and park rangers carry the narrative between the political battles in Washington and the landscapes themselves, from Sequoia's ancient trees to Acadia's coastline. The series treats the parks as an ongoing argument about who America is for, not a settled achievement, tracking threats from developers, politicians, and neglect straight through to the present.