American Environmental History

Explore how the peoples of America understood and changed their natural environments, remaking their politics, culture, and societies
 
In this newly revised Second Edition of American Environmental History, celebrated environmental historian and author Louis S. Warren provides readers with insightful examination of how different American peoples created and reacted to environmental change and threats from the era before Columbus to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
You'll find concise editorial introductions to each chapter and interpretive interventions throughout this meticulous collection of essays and historical documents. This book covers topics as varied as Native American relations with nature, colonial invasions, American slavery, market expansion and species destruction, urbanization, Progressive and New Deal conservation, national parks, the environmental impact of consumer appetites, environmentalism and the backlash against it, environmental justice, and climate change.
 
This new edition includes twice as many primary documents as the First Edition, along with findings from related fields such as Native American history, African American history, geography, and environmental justice.
 
Ideal for students and researchers studying American environmental history and for those seeking historical perspectives on contemporary environmental challenges, this book will earn a place in the libraries of anyone with an interest in American history and the impact of American peoples on the environment and the world around them.
 
Louis S. Warren is the W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at the University of California, Davis. He is a two-time winner of the Caughey Western History Association Prize, a Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Albert Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association and the Bancroft Prize in American History.

List of contents

Series Editor's Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
Introduction: What is Environmental History?
 
1 The Nature of Indian America Before Columbus
 
Article: William M. Denevan, "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492" (Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82(3) 1992: 369-385)
 
Documents
 
Richard Nelson, "The Watchful World" (from Richard Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest (University of Chicago, 1983): 14 - 32.
 
From Gilbert Wilson, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987)
 
Images of Florida Indians planting and making an offering of a stag to the sun (Images and text extracts from Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, The Work of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Vols. I and II).
 
U.S. Geological Survey, map of Bitterroot Forest Reserve showing burned areas, 1890.
 
2 The Other Invaders: Deadly Diseases and Extraordinary Animals
 
Article: Alfred W. Crosby, "Virgin Soil Epidemics" (excerpted from Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900 - 1900 (Cambridge, 1987))
 
Documents
 
Frank Givens, "Saynday and Smallpox: The White Man's Gift"
 
From Thomas James, Three Years among the Indians and Mexicans
 
John C. Ewers, "Horse Breeding"
 
George Catlin, "Wild Horses at Play"
 
3 Colonial Natures: Marketing the Countryside
 
Article: William Cronon, "A World of Fields and Fences" excerpt from Changes in the Land: Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England (Hill & Wang, 1983)
 
Documents
 
Robert Cushman, "Reasons and Considerations Touching the Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the Parts of America" (1622)
 
Lion Gardener, "Livestock and War in Colonial New England"
 
Spanish priests Joseph Murguia and Thomas de la Pena explain Indian frustration with settler livestock in colonial California
 
4 Slavery and the South Through Environmental History
 
Article: Mart Stewart, "Towards an Environmental History of the U.S. South"
 
Documents
 
newspaper advertisements for African slaves "from 'The Rice Coast' of West Africa, with knowledge of rice growing"
 
Wilderness songs of enslaved people, William Francis Allen, Slave Songs of the United States (1867)
 
Frederick Law Olmsted, "The Rice District"
 
5 Frontier Expansion and Waste
 
Article: Alan Taylor, "Wasty Ways": Stories of American Settlement" (from Environmental History 3(3) July 1998: 291 - 309 (excerpted)).
 
Documents
 
James Fenimore Cooper on "The Wasty Ways of Pioneers"
 
John J. Audubon and the Wonder of the Passenger Pigeon, 1830s
 
Reporting on Passenger Pigeons (1850)
 
Frederick J. Haskin, "One Bird Survives Millions" (1913)
 
Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in California
 
Thomas Cole, Excerpt from "Essay on American Scenery" (1836)
 
6 Environmental Reform In City and Factory
 
Article: Charles E. Rosenberg, From The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 ("Introduction," and "The Epidemic," from The Cholera Years (1962, rev. ed. 1987), 1-7, 13 - 39, excerpted)
 
Documents
 
"The Metropolitan Board of Health Suppresses Nuisances" (1866)
 
"Underground Life--Health Officers Clean Out a Dive" (1873)
 
San Francisco fire, 1850s
 
Los Angeles crowd with water flowing into aqueduct
 
Dynamited LA aqueduct, 1927.
 
Alice Hamilton describes the industrial workplace of the early 1900s (1943)
 
7 Emerging Markets and Vanishing Animals
 
Article: Dan Flores, "Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy Redux: Another Look at the Southern Plai

About the author

Louis S. Warren is the W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at the University of California, Davis. He is a two-time winner of the Caughey Western History Association Prize, a Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Albert Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association and the Bancroft Prize in American History.

Summary

With this book, discover how the peoples of America perceived and changed their environments and, in the process, re-made their politics, culture, and societies.

The thoroughly revised and newly updated Second Edition of American Environmental History delivers a comprehensive exploration of how the peoples of the United States have perceived, and made changes to, the natural world around them. It also describes how nature has changed in response to humanity, from the pre-Columbian era to the present, and how Americans have fought with one another over how best to live in the earth's natural systems.

Accomplished professor and author Louis S. Warren offers readers examinations of crucial topics, including Native American landscapes and relations with nature, virgin soil epidemics, colonial invasion, American slavery through environmental history and the nexus of race and environmental peril, market economies and the destruction of bison, passenger pigeons, whales, and other creatures, industrial development and its hazards, urbanization and calls for pollution control, conservation in the Progressive Era, wilderness and national parks, the rise of environmentalism, the birth of the environmental justice movement, consumerism and its environmental impact, the conservative backlash against environmentalism, and histories of ozone depletion, acid rain, overpopulation, and climate change. This book invites readers to weigh the distinctive experiences of different people--white, Black, and Native American--to environmental change and environmental threats from the colonial period to COVID-19.

You'll benefit from an insightful editorial introduction to each chapter, as well as interpretive interventions that add scholarly value to each reading and document. The author includes selections from amongst the most exciting scholarship and seminal essays on the subject of environmental history in the United States.

American Environmental History, Second Edition provides readers with:
* Over twice as many primary documents as the First Edition
* Perspective on a time period spanning from the pre-Columbian era to the present day
* The incorporation of insights from several fields, including Native American history, African American history, environmental justice, and geography
* A chapter dedicated to the environmental history of American slavery
* Clarifying insights into the creation and impact of the New Deal on the American environment
* Guidance for students on thinking about climate change in historical perspective

Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students studying American Environmental History, this book is also ideal for anyone with even a passing interest in American natural history and the impact of her peoples on the natural world around them.

Product details

• Authors: Louis S Warren, Louis S. Warren, Louis S. (University of California At Davi Warren, Ls Warren
• Assisted by: Loui S Warren (Editor), Louis S Warren (Editor), Louis S. Warren (Editor), Warren Louis S. (Editor)
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 02.08.2021
• EAN: 9781444339390
• ISBN: 978-1-4443-3939-0
• No. of pages: 656
• Series: Wiley Blackwell Readers in Ame; Blackwell Readers in American Social and Cultural History; Wiley Blackwell Readers in American Social and Cultural History; Wiley Blackwell Readers in Ame
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology > Ecology; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Geschichte, Umwelt, History, Geschichte der USA, US History, Geschichte der Medizin u. Naturwissenschaften, History of Science & Medicine