Exploring the Impact of Colonization on the Ecology and Indigenous Peoples of New England: An Analysis of William Cronon's Changes in the Land

H. M. Ogden: Highly recommended by an expert as crucial to understanding early U.S. history

United States on Oct 20, 2023

GIANNI DE ANGELIS: The book is for a class

Canada on Sep 13, 2023

M Clark: This is one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking books I have read so far this year. Cronon's book is one of the pioneering works of ecological history. By looking at the causes of the ecological changes after European settlers arrive in New England, Cronon provides new insights into colonial history. By explaining how the landscape changed over time, the book opens your eyes to looking at the American landscape in a very different way.

This is a reissue of the book with an excellent introduction by Demos and a nice concluding essay by Cronon explaining how he came to write this book.

Germany on Jul 01, 2023

Javier Lara Flores: Excelente libro

Mexico on Jul 26, 2020

RDD: In Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, William Cronon examines the ecological changes that occurred in New England from the beginning of the colonial period until the end of the eighteenth century. His primary argument is that “the destruction of Indian communities…brought some of the most important ecological changes which followed the Europeans’ arrival in America” and that “the choice is not between two landscapes, one with and one without a human influence; it is between two human ways of living, two ways of belonging to an ecosystem.” Cronon draws his evidence from “the descriptions of travelers and early naturalists,” public records that describe local ecological change, what he terms “less orthodox sorts of evidence” such as “relict stands of old-growth timber,” and finally microscopic soil changes for which Cronon admits there is “little or no historical evidence.” The admitted flaws in his evidence aside, Cronon’s greatest issue is the Eurocentrism prevalent in his argument.
While Cronon admits in his conclusion that “making the arrival of the Europeans the center of our analysis, we run the risk of...

United States on Oct 21, 2015

NDB: This is truly a great book, a classic I must say, for those interested in the history of the environnement. It is well written. It tells the story of the Indians' way of life before the settlement of the Europeans in America. I found it very inspiring and well narrated. Then the book follow the path of the Europeans, their encounter with the Indians, and the changes that follow in the way Indians used to leave and for the land on a massive scale.
I highly recommand this book to those we wish to step back in time and to explore another way of life, the one of the Indians in comparaison to our own. The book clearly spell out the ways of our unforgiven civilization.

France on Apr 09, 2015

Dienne: I only picked this up in support of the author after I read a bit about his role in the recent Wisconsin protests and the repercussions he faced therefor. I didn't actually expect to like the book. It sounded like a dry, academic study of a topic I wasn't much interested in. I couldn't have been more wrong. This book is not only fascinating and illuminative of a much overlooked and misunderstood period in history, but it is also relevant to aspects of today's political and economic struggles.

Admittedly, the book gets off to a slow start. The first section explores what we are able to know about New England ecology before and during the colonial period, and the limitations on how we know it. The first chapter of the second section is an exploration of the diversity of New England ecology, both between the general northern and southern regions, as well as among the various "patchworks" of ecological areas within the two regions. These sections form a necessary base for the remainder of the book, but they are rather dry and academic.

But beginning with the chapter "Seasons of Want and Plenty", Cronon gets into the real meat of his argument: the differences between the...

United States on Sep 29, 2011

S. Pactor: Even though I live in San Diego, I found this book to be well worth the read. Dense but short, "Changes in the Land" gives a close reading to the ecological impact of British colonization in New England. As Cronon states in his conclusion, this transformation has ramifications far outside New England, since the environmental degradation that accompanied early colonization forced settlers farther and farther afield.
Twenty years after it was published, the scholarship is still, what I would consider "cutting edge". Cronon cuts across disciplines and primary sources to produce a nuanced model of the interrelationship of humans and the environment. Cronon's work is just as interesting for his (to me, anyway) novel technique of writing a history where the personalities of humans take a back seat to the consequnces of their decisions.
The effect is at once radical and main stream. Radical, in that Cronon strips away traditional justifications for human decisions that reinforce the implicit assumptions that cause those same decisions. Main stream, in that he manages to stay away from the hyperbole and argument that plague revisions of history.
I've also read Cronon's "Nature's...

United States on May 27, 2004