American Environmental History

About this book

Explore how the peoples of America understood and changed their natural environments, remaking their politics, culture, and societies.

In this newly revised second edition of American Environmental History, celebrated environmental historian and author Louis S. Warren provides readers with insightful examination of how different American peoples created and reacted to environmental change and threats from the era before Columbus to the COVID-19 pandemic.

You'll find concise editorial introductions to each chapter and interpretive interventions throughout this meticulous collection of essays and historical documents. This book covers topics as varied as Native American relations with nature, colonial invasions, American slavery, market expansion and species destruction, urbanization, Progressive and New Deal conservation, national parks, the environmental impact of consumer appetites, environmentalism and the backlash against it, environmental justice, and climate change.

This new edition includes twice as many primary documents as the first edition, along with findings from related fields such as Native American history, African American history, geography, and environmental justice.

Ideal for students and researchers studying American environmental history and for those seeking historical perspectives on contemporary environmental challenges, American Environmental History will earn a place in the libraries of anyone with an interest in American history and the impact of American peoples on the environment and the world around them.

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: What is Environmental History?
1 The Nature of Indian America Before Columbus
2 The Other Invaders: Deadly Diseases and Extraordinary Animals
3 Colonial Natures: Marketing the Countryside
4 Slavery and the South Through Environmental History
5 Frontier Expansion and Waste
6 Environmental Reform In City and Factory
7 Emerging Markets and Vanishing Animals
8 The Many Uses of Progressive Conservation
9 National Parks and the Trouble With Wilderness
10 Conservation and the New Deal
11 Something In the Wind: Radiation, Pesticides, and Air Pollution
12 Environmental Protection and the Environmental Movement
13 Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice
14 Global Consumers and Global Environments
15 Back-Lash Against the Environmental Movement
16 Shifting Scale: Climate Change and Global Peril

Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Louis S. Warren is the W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at the University of California, Davis. He is a two-time winner of the Caughey Western History Association Prize, a Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Albert Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association and the Bancroft Prize in American History.