American environmental history: an introduction

By studying the many ways diverse peoples have changed, shaped, and conserved the natural world over time, environmental historians provide insight into humanity's unique relationship with nature and, more importantly, are better able to understand the origins of our current environmental crisis. Beginning with the precolonial land use practice of Native Americans and concluding with our twenty-first century concerns over our global ecological crisis, this work addresses contentious issues such as the preservation of the wilderness, the expulsion of native peoples from national parks, and population growth, and considers the formative forces of gender, race, and class. Entries address a range of topics, from the impact of rice cultivation, slavery, and the growth of the automobile suburb to the effects of the Russian sea otter trade, Columbia River salmon fisheries, the environmental justice movement, and globalization. This volume is an illustrated reference which provides information about the ongoing transformation of the American landscape and the conflicts over its resources and conservation. It makes rich use of the tools and resources (climatic and geological data, court records, archaeological digs, and the writings of naturalists) that environmental historians rely on to conduct their research. The volume also includes a compendium of significant people, concepts, events, agencies, and legislation, and an extensive bibliography of critical films, books, and Web sites.

pt. 1.: Historical overview--topics and themes -- The American environment and native-European encounters, 1000-1875 -- The New England wilderness transformed, 1600-1850 -- The tobacco and cotton south, 1600-1900 -- Nature and the market economy, 1750-1850 -- Western frontiers: the settlement of the Pacific coast and the Great Plains, 1820-1930 -- Urban environments, 1850-1960 -- Conservation and preservation, 1785-1950 -- Indian land policy, 1800-1990 -- The rise of ecology, 1890-1990 -- Environmentalism and globalization, 1960-2005 -- pt. 2.: American environmental history A to Z-- agencies, concepts, laws, and people -- pt. 3.: Chronology--an environmental history timeline -- pt. 4.: Resource guide.