Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 242 pages
- Published by: Hill and Wang
- Edition: Revised Edition September 1, 2003
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0809016346
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0809016341
-
Book Dimensions:
8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 8.5 ounces
Product Review
Much historical writing is far more concerned with the players than the stage: narratives of kings and cabbage-merchants, although acted out in fields and forests, typically include nature only as a convenient prop to provide the occasional splash of color. In
Changes in the Land, Cronon treats the land of New England with the same sensitivity and attention to detail as the lives of the American natives and the colonists--he depicts the effects of changing land-use patterns on the texture of the New England landscape, and gives voice to the changing communities of trees, rock walls, and rivers. The chapter on the effects of changing notions of "property" on the ecology of New England are especially strong.
Changes in the Land is almost the equal of Cronon's masterpiece,
Nature's Metropolis, a monumental study of the ecological effects of Chicago on the entire central portion of the United States in the 1800s. Highly Recommended to specialists and general readers alike.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product 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
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Review
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (Paperback)
At one point in my life, I read every single thing ever written on the Puritans; I was preparing for a dissertation that took me a year to prepare for, only to find somebody else published almost exactly what I was working on a month before I sat down to write. To this day, I have an inordinate fondness for books on the Puritans that mystifies my friends. Like all fans, I know everything there is to know about the subject at hand. So my joy in discovering "Changes in the Land" was in finding a book that told me much that I didn't know about the Puritans. William Cronon, a student of my favorite colonial historian Edmund Morgan, has come up with an excellent mix of ecology and anthropology, history and theology. The development of New England as a land separate from the Indians, and from their uses of the land, is one which resonates throughout American mythology. From the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving (wherein their wholesale adoption of Indian agriculture kept them starving) to the wholesale abandonment of New England farms in the early 1800s due to their miniscule returns, Cronon covers all the bases. A truly fine read for anybody wishing to know more about the history of ecology, the dynamics of invasion, or the Puritans themselves.
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