Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England

Description: Product Description Winner of the Francis Parkman PrizeChanges in the Land offers an original and persuasive interpretation of the changing circumstances in New England's plant and animal communities that occurred with the shift from Indian to European dominance. With the tools of both historian and ecologist, Cronon constructs an interdisciplinary analysis of how the land and the people influenced one another, and how that complex web of relationships shaped New England's communities. Review "Changes in the Land exemplifies, and realizes, the promise of ecological history with stunning effect. Setting his sights squarely on the well-worn terrain of colonial New England, [Cronon] fashions a story that is fresh, ingenious, compelling and altogether important. His approach is at once vividly descriptive and profoundly analytic."--John Demos, The New York Times Book Review "A superb achievement: Cronon has changed the terms of historical discourse regarding colonial New England."--Wilcomb E. Washburn, director of the Office of American Studies, Smithsonian Institution"A cogent, sophisticated, and balanced study of Indian-white contact. Gracefully written, subtly argued, and well informed, it is a work whose implications extend far beyond colonial New England."--Richard White, Michigan State University"This is ethno-ecological history at its best . . . American colonial history will never be the same after this path-breaking, exciting book."--Wilbur R. Jacobs, University of California, Santa Barbara"A brilliant performance, from which all students of early American history will profit."--Edmund S. Morgan, Yale University About the Author William Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His book Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West won the Bancroft Prize in 1992. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Changes in the LandPART ILooking Backward1THE VIEW FROM WALDENOn the morning of January 24, 1855, Henry David Thoreau sat down with his journal to consider the ways in which his Concord home had been altered by more than two centuries of European settlement. He had recently read the book New England's Prospect, in which the English traveler William Wood recounted his 1633 voyage to southern New England and described for English readers the landscape he had found there. Now Thoreau sought to annotate the ways in which Wood's Massachusetts was different from his own. The changes seemed sweeping indeed.1He began with the wild meadow grasses, which appeared, he wrote, "to have grown more rankly in those days." If Wood's descriptions were accurate, the strawberries too had been larger and more abundant "before they were so cornered up by cultivation." Some of them had been as much as two inches around, and were so numerous that one could gather half a bushel in a forenoon. Equally abundant were gooseberries, raspberries, and especially currants, which, Thoreau mused, "so many old writers speak of, but so few moderns find wild."New England forests had been much more extensive and theirtrees larger in 1633. On the coast, where Indian settlement had been greatest, the woods had presented a more open and parklike appearance to the first English settlers, without the underbrush and coppice growth so common in nineteenth-century Concord. To see such a forest nowadays, Thoreau wrote, it was necessary to make an expedition to "the sample still left in Maine." As nearly as he could tell, oaks, firs, plums, and tulip trees were all less numerous than they had been in Wood's day.But if the forest was much reduced from its former state, most of its tree species nevertheless remained. This was more than could be said for many of its animal inhabitants. Thoreau's list of those that were now absent was stark: "bear, moose, deer, porcupines, 'the grim-fac'd Ounce, and rav'nous howling Wolf,' and beaver. Martens." Not only the mamma

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EAN: 9780809001583

Book Title: Changes in the Land : Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England

Item Length: 8.3in.

Item Height: 0.7in.

Item Width: 6.4in.

Author: William Cronon

Format: Trade Paperback

Language: English

Topic: Life Sciences / Ecology, United States / Northeast / New England (Ct, mA, ME, NH, Ri, VT), United States / State & Local / New England (Ct, mA, ME, NH, Ri, VT), Ecology

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Publication Year: 1983

Genre: Nature, Travel, Science, History

Item Weight: 8.5 Oz

Number of Pages: 242 Pages