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.
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
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Web Site, July, 2003
Summary
The book that launched environmental history now updated.
Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize
In this landmark work of environmental history, William Cronon offers an original and profound explanation of the
effects European colonists' sense of property and their pursuit of capitalism had upon the ecosystems of New England.
Reissued here with an updated afterword by the author and a new preface by the distinguished colonialist John Demos,
Changes in the Land, provides a brilliant inter-disciplinary interpretation of how land and people influence one
another. With its chilling closing line, "The people of plenty were a people of waste," Cronon's enduring
and thought-provoking book is ethno-ecological history at its best.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Looking Backward
The View from Walden
p. 3
The Ecological Transformation of Colonial New England
Landscape and Patchwork
p. 19
Seasons of Want and Plenty
p. 34
Bounding the Land
p. 54
Commodities of the Hunt
p. 82
Taking the Forest
p. 108
A World of Fields and Fences
p. 127
Harvests of Change
The Wilderness Should Turn a Mart
p. 159
Afterword: The Book That Almost Wasn't
p. 171
Notes
p. 187
Bibliographical Essay
p. 223
Index
p. 253
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.