ISBN: 9780812251272
Editorial: University of Pennsylvania Press
Autor: Roberts, Strother E.
Año de edición: 2019
N° Paginas: 280
Tipo de pasta: Pasta dura
Descripción: Review Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy is an insightful, topical, and nuanced work that proves successful in its project. Roberts makes a strong case for cis-Atlantic frameworks, showing how the choices and actions of individuals on a local level can influence larger regional and global processes. It is a welcome contribution to the fields of environmental history, economic history, Native American history, and the history of the Atlantic World. ― American Indian QuarterlyA fine contribution to the resurgent field of early American environmental history. Strother E. Roberts deftly integrates Atlantic and continental approaches, and his materialist emphasis nicely complements recent works on early New England's environmental history that focus on cultural representations. ― James Rice, Tufts University Focusing on the Connecticut River Valley—New England's longest river and largest watershed— Strother Roberts traces the local, regional, and transatlantic markets in colonial commodities that shaped an ecological transformation in one corner of the rapidly globalizing early modern world. Reaching deep into the interior, the Connecticut provided a watery commercial highway for the furs, grain, timber, livestock, and various other commodities that the region exported. Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy shows how the extraction of each commodity had an impact on the New England landscape, creating a new colonial ecology inextricably tied to the broader transatlantic economy beyond its shores.This history refutes two common misconceptions: first, that globalization is a relatively new phenomenon and its power to reshape economies and natural environments has only fully been realized in the modern era and, second, that the Puritan founders of New England were self-sufficient ascetics who sequestered themselves from the corrupting influence of the wider world. Roberts argues, instead, that colonial New England was an integral part of Britain's expanding imperialist commercial economy.Imperial planners envisioned New England as a region able to provide resources to other, more profitable parts of the empire, such as the sugar islands of the Caribbean. Settlers embraced trade as a means to afford the tools they needed to conquer the landscape and to acquire the same luxury commodities popular among the consumer class of Europe. New England's native nations, meanwhile, utilized their access to European trade goods and weapons to secure power and prestige in a region shaken by invading newcomers and the diseases that followed in their wake. These networks of extraction and exchange fundamentally transformed the natural environment of the region, creating a landscape that, by the turn of the nineteenth century, would have been unrecognizable to those living there two centuries earlier. Book Description Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy focuses on New England's largest watershed to explore how the participation of Native nations and English settlers in local, regional, and transatlantic markets for colonial commodities transformed the physical environment in one corner of the rapidly globalizing early modern world. About the Author Strother Roberts teaches history at Bowdoin College. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. IntroductionConflict, Choices, and ChangeMetaphorically speaking, no ecosystem is an island, complete unto itself. Nature is no more fixed in character and features than are the human beings who inhabit it. And, like human beings, individual ecosystems are defined by their relationships. These relationships include the dense network of natural processes that tie regions together—the exchange of soil and seeds upon wind and waves, the migration of animal life on flippers, feet, and wings. Just as important are the links that humanity has created between far-flung ecosystems. Ever since the earth's Eastern and Western Hemispheres rediscover
- Idioma: Inglés
- Envío: Desde EE. UU.
- Libro Impreso y Nuevo
