Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England PDF
Preview Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
CHANGES in the LAND CHANGES in the LAND , Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England WILLIAM CRONON (fty Hill and Wang A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux New York Hill and Wang A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux 19 Union Square West, New York 10003 Copyright © 1983, 2003 by William Cronon Foreword copyright © 2003 by John Demos All rights reserved Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. Printed in the United States of America First edition published in 1983 by Hill and Wang First revised edition, 2003 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cronon, William. Changes in the land : Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England / by William Cronon ; with a new foreword by John Demos.— 2oth-anniversary ed., Rev. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8090-1634-6 (pb : alk. paper) i. Nature—Effect of human beings on—New England—History. 2. Landscape changes—New England—History. 3. New England— History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. I- Title. GF504.N45C76 2003 304.2'o974—dc2i 2003042340 Designed by Tere LoPrete www.fsgbooks.com 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 For Nan 1 * ï :• • 1 v ( ,y i. i f 'l m M The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their conse quent relation to the rest of nature. . . . The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modifica tion in the course of history through the action of men. —Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology As we have seen, man has reacted upon organized and inorganic nature, and thereby modified, if not determined, the material structure of his earthly home. —George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature I think, considering our age, the great toils we have undergone, the roughness of some parts of this country, and our original poverty, that we have done the most in the least time of any people on earth. —J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America CONTENTS Foreword by John Demos xi Preface xv Part I. Looking Backward 1 The View from Walden 3 Part II. The Ecological Transformation of Colonial New England 2 Landscape and Patchwork 19 3 Seasons of Want and Plenty 34 4 Bounding the Land 54 5 Commodities of the Hunt 82 6 Taking the Forest 108 7 A World of Fields and Fences 127 Part III. Harvests of Change 8 That Wilderness Should Turn a Mart 159 Afterword: The Book That Almost Wasn’t 171 Notes 187 Bibliographical Essay 223 Index 253
The list of books you might like
