William Cronon

"Written with an elegant simplicity of style, this pioneering study has become an enduring classic in the fields of American colonial and environmental history." -Howard R. Lamar, Yale UniversityChanges in the Land is an original and persuasive interpretation of the changing circumstances in New England's plant and animal communities that occurred with the shift from Indian to European dominance. With the tools of both historian and ecologist, William Cronon constructs a brilliant interdisciplinary analysis of how the land and the people influenced one another, and how that complex web of relationships shaped New England's communities."[By] appraising evidence that ranges from fossil pollen counts to Puritan court documents, William Cronon explain[s] how the farming practices and commercial instincts of the early English Colonists destroyed the region's flourishing forest habitat - and doomed New England's native Indians with it . . . Cronon's eloquent book has the rigor of first-rate history and the power of tragedy." -Jim Miller, Newsweek"The book's greatest contribution is bringing together work from so many sources in a wide range of disciplines and in focusing it through the lens of ecological concerns." -Karen Ordahl Kupperman, The Journal of American History

In this groundbreaking work, William Cronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history of nineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize

William Cronon published a number of versions of this essay, each aimed at a different audience. This version comes from the New York Times (1995); another version appears as the introduction to a book Cronon edited, "Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature" (1995), a collection of essays on the environment. Cronon, Wiliam. "The Trouble with Wilderness." 1995. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. Ed. Melissa A. Goldthwaite et al. 14th ed. New York: Norton, 2016. 550-53. Print.

“If you prefer history served in a dozen fresh ways, get this book.” ―Chicago Tribune The history of the American West is being transformed by exciting new ideas, new questions, new scholarship. For many years this field was dominated by popular images of the lone cowboy and the savage Indian, and by Frederick Jackson Turner's concept of the frontier as a steadily advancing source of democracy and social renewal. But now historians and even the merchants of popular culture are reshaping our views of the frontier and the West by taking up a rich array of new subjects, including the stories of diverse peoples as well as the history of the land itself. A new generation of scholars is reformulating the broader questions also: What was the significance of the frontier in American history? What are the bases of western identity? What themes connect the twentieth-century West to its more distant past? The transformation of western history continues to be an open-ended, turbulent process. The original essays in this volume are reports from the frontier of change. In their diverging assumptions and conclusions, they reflect the vitality of this field. They succeed when they make the case for new questions and suggest possible answers. They advocate no single agenda. But taken together they well represent the passion and high craft with which scholars are creating a new western history.

Ce livre est le premier à introduire William Cronon en France où il reste très peu connu en dehors d’un public spécialisé. Sont rassemblés dans ce volume tous les grands articles de cet historien, articulant ainsi toute la gamme des propositions de son oeuvre complexe et riche. Peu d’auteurs peuvent revendiquer d’avoir écrit des articles dont chacun a été aussi influent dans le monde intellectuel. Cette publication arrive dans un contexte éditorial français favorable, marqué par l’intérêt croissant pour l’histoire environnementale et la manière dont les avancées de ce type de recherches permettent aujourd’hui de repenser les questions écologiques actuelles. Cet ouvrage est assuré par une introduction de Grégory Quenet qui permettra d’exposer toute la fécondité de ces textes aux lecteurs français.

« Le paysage américain a connu des transformations qui annonçaient à bien des égards les problèmes environnementaux auxquels nous sommes confrontés aujourd’hui » écrit William Cronon dans le prologue La métropole de la nature, ouvrage de référence dans les pays anglophones mais qui, faute de traduction, demeure trop peu connu en France. Présenter cet ouvrage de 660 pages en quelques lignes n’est pas chose aisée, tant l’auteur mêle avec brio l’histoire, l’anthropologie, l’économie, l’écologie, l’industrie, etc., pour nous conter l’histoire fulgurante de Chicago et de ses alentours, de sa naissance dans un marécage de boue jusqu’à la « métropole » capitale du Grand Ouest américain. Il s’agit donc ici tout d’abord de l’histoire d’une ville, mais aussi de celle de la « nature » qu’elle a dû dominer pour exister, cette « nature » ayant été (et étant toujours) à l’origine de sa richesse (les marchés de matières premières par exemple). Ville et campagne sont intrinsèquement liés, nous dit Cronon à juste titre; il est impossible de penser l’une sans penser l’autre. Livre dense mais extrêmement lisible, merveilleusement écrit, d’une intelligence rare, La métropole de la nature aura demandé presque 15 ans de travail de recherche et d’écriture (l’ouvrage fut initialement une thèse de doctorat). Salué internationalement comme étant probablement le meilleur livre d’histoire écologique jamais écrit, cet ouvrage montre en quoi, au-delà de l’histoire singulière d’une ville, les fondements de l’exploitation économique de la nature ont modelé cette dernière au point d’en faire une « seconde nature ».

Stephen Pyne sVestal Fireis an astoundingtour de force even by this writer s demandingly high standards nothing less than a total history of the western conception practice and response to fire through at least three millennia Simon Schama author ofLandscape and Memory This is environmental history at its best a subtle but provocative new blend of the human and the natural of culture and nature of society and environment and a rattling good story Michael Williams Oxford University Vestal Fireis a magisterially comprehensive environmental history of fire in Europe and most of the rest of the world It is a splendidly written capstone of Stephen Pyne s Cycle of Fire a work of more than twenty years duration William H Goetzmann author ofExploration and EmpireStephen J Pyne a noted environmental historian is a professor in the Biology and Society Program at Arizona State University Among his many books are the five volumes comprising the Cycle of Fire of which Vestal Fire is the most recent Stephen Pyne has been described as having a consciousness composed of equal parts historian ecologist philosopher critic poet and sociologist At this time in history when many people are trying to understand their true relationship with the natural environment this book offers a remarkable contribution breathtaking in the scope of its research and exhilarating to read Pyne takes the reader on a journey through time exploring the terrain of Europe and the uses and abuses of its lands as well as through migration and conquest many parts of the rest of the world Whether he is discussing the Mediterranean region Russia Scandinavia the British Isles central Europe or colonized islands whether he is considering the impact of agriculture forestry or Enlightenment thinking the author brings an unmatched insight to his subject Vestal Fire takes its title from Vesta Roman goddess of the hearth and keeper of the sacred fire on Mount Oly