American Environmental History

by Warren, Louis S.

• ISBN13: 9780631228646
• ISBN10: 0631228640
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-04
• Publisher: Wiley Publishing

Summary

This compilation of seminal essays introduces students to the most exciting scholarship and writing on the environmental history in the United States. With primary documents that illustrate the conditions, perception, and influences of environmental issues from the pre-Columbian era to the present, the book invites students to analyze not only the connections between people and nature, but popular ideas of the environment in American history. Subjects include the changing American landscape, virgin soil epidemics and biological invasions, the impact of colonialism and industrial development, conservation, and the environmental movement and the backlash against it. An editorial introduction and headnotes for each chapter add scholarly value to the readings and documents. Students and instructors of American environmental history will find this an ideal collection for their courses and research.

Author Biography

Louis S. Warren is Associate Professor of History and W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western US History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (1999).

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface	xii
Acknowledgments	xiv
Introduction: What is Environmental History?	1	(3)
The Natures of Indian America Before Columbus	4	(45)
Article	4	(1)
The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492	5	(21)
William M. Denevan
Documents
``The Watchful World''	26	(15)
Richard Nelson
From Gilbert Wilson, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden	41	(5)
Images of Florida Indians planting and making an offering of a stag to the sun	46	(3)
The Other Invaders: Deadly Diseases and Extraordinary Animals	49	(24)
Article	49	(1)
Virgin Soil Epidemics	50	(13)
Alfred W. Crosby
Documents
``Saynday and Smallpox: The White Man's Gift''	63	(3)
Frank Givens
From Thomas James, Three Years among the Indians and Mexicans	66	(2)
``Horse Breeding''	68	(3)
John C. Ewers
``Wild Horses at Play''	71	(2)
George Catlin
Colonial Natures: Marketing the Countryside	73	(28)
Article	73	(1)
A World of Fields and Fences	73	(22)
William Cronon
Documents
``Reasons and Considerations Touching the Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the Parts of America'' (1622)	95	(2)
Robert Cushman
Lion Gardener, ``Livestock and War in Colonial New England''	97	(2)
Spanish priests Joseph Murguia and Thomas de la Pena explain Indian frustration with settler livestock in colonial California	99	(2)
Forest and Plantation in Nineteenth-Century America	101	(40)
Section I: Clearing the Forest	101	(1)
Article	101	(1)
``Wasty Ways'': Stories of American Settlement	102	(16)
Alan Taylor
Documents
James Fenimore Cooper on the Wasty Ways of Pioneers	118	(3)
What I Saw in California	121	(3)
Edwin Bryant
Section II: Nature and Slavery	124	(1)
Article	124	(1)
Rice, Water, and Power: Landscapes of Domination and Resistance in the Lowcountry, 1790--1880	125	(12)
Mart A. Stewart
Documents
Map of Doboy and Altamaha Sounds (1856)	137	(1)
Frederick Law Olmsted, ``The Rice District''	138	(3)
Urban Nature and Urban Reforms	141	(19)
Article	141	(1)
From The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866	142	(13)
Charles E. Rosenberg
Documents
San Francisco fire, 1850s	155	(2)
Crowd with empty aqueduct	157	(1)
Dynamited portion of LA aqueduct	157	(3)
Markets, Nature, and the Disappearing Bison	160	(20)
Article	160	(1)
Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy Redux: Another Look at the Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850	161	(14)
Dan Flores
Documents
``Memories of buffalo hunting''	175	(3)
Billy Dixon
``Curing Hides and Bones''	178	(1)
Drake Hotel, Thanksgiving Menu, 1886	178	(2)
The Many Uses of Conservation	180	(32)
Article	180	(1)
Conservation, Subsistence, and Class at the Birth of Superior National Forest	181	(18)
Benjamin Heber Johnson
Documents
``The Meaning of Conservation''	199	(3)
Gifford Pinchot
``Mr. A. A. Anderson, Special Supervisor of the Yellowstone and Teton Timber Reserves, Talks Interestingly of the Summer's Work''	202	(4)
Charles Askins Describes Game and Hunting Conditions in the South	206	(3)
Ben Senowin testifies about being apprehended for game law violations	209	(3)
National Parks and the Trouble with Wilderness	212	(32)
Article	212	(1)
The Trouble with Wilderness, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature	213	(23)
William Cronon
Documents
John Muir on Saving Hetch Hetchy	236	(3)
Peter Oscar Little Chief requests permission to hunt in Glacier Park	239	(2)
National Parks Act, 1916; Wilderness Act, 1964	241	(3)
Something in the Wind: Radiation, Pesticides, and Air Pollution	244	(27)
Article	244	(1)
Reconstructing Environmentalism: Complex Movements, Diverse Roots	245	(11)
Robert Gottlieb
Documents
``Fallout: The Silent Killer''	256	(7)
From Rachel Carson, Silent Spring	263	(4)
The Air Pollution Control Act (1955); the Clean Air Act, with amendments (2001)	267	(4)
Environmental Protection and the Environmental Movement	271	(27)
Article	271	(1)
Richard Nixon and the Triumph of Environmentalism	272	(18)
J. Brooks Flippen
Documents
National Environmental Policy Act (1969)	290	(3)
The Endangered Species Act (1973)	293	(2)
From Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb	295	(3)
Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice	298	(26)
Article	298	(1)
Troubled Waters in Ecotopia: Environmental Racism in Portland, Oregon	299	(19)
Ellen Stroud
Documents
Lois Gibbs on toxic waste and environmental justice	318	(3)
From United Church of Christ, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States	321	(1)
The Letter that Shook a Movement	322	(2)
Backlash Against the Environmental Movement	324	(12)
Documents
``The Politics of Plunder''	325	(4)
Carl Pope
``The Costs of Environmental Overregulation''	329	(4)
S. Fred Singer
```Jobs vs. Environment' Myth''	333	(3)
Mark Douglas Whitaker
Legacies	336	(11)
Documents
``The Population Explosion is Over''	336	(6)
Ben J. Wattenberg
From World Population Prospects	342	(1)
Graph of Economic Growth and Air Emission Trends, 1970--2000	343	(1)
Graph of Atmospheric CO2 Concentration, 1958--1997	344	(1)
The Triumph of Diplomacy?: Atmospheric CFC Graph, 1977--1996	345	(2)
Index	347