Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England

by Diana Muir

A dramatic story of the interplay between environment and economy in New England.

Genres: Nature, History, Nonfiction, Native Americans

Hardcover

First published April 1, 2000

About the author

Also writes under the pen name Diana Appelbaum.
Diana Muir, also known as Diana Muir Appelbaum, is a Newton, Massachusetts historian best known for her 2000 book Reflections in Bullough's Pond, a history of the impact of human activity on the New England ecosystem.
Sometimes credited as Diana J. Muir or Diana Jean Muir .

Reviews

[Simon Kissam]

Really enjoyed this little book I found at one of the used bookstores near Penn a while ago. The older lady working there knew this woman's son when he went to Penn. Pop history but pretty good, except when she started going on about Protestant work ethic and how the Irish weren't inventors and entrepreneurs like the English/German/Scandinavian immigrants and thus were happy to toil as factory hands. Some real idealism. Also weird at the end when she's like "current system is unsustainable...so we will have to have population decrease" because reducing energy demand is just too difficult. But overall really good look at intersection of environment and economy in New England. I do love New England!

[Shannon]

I'm reading this book for a history book group for teachers. The way Ms. Muir tells the story is really lovely taking it from big ideas to small local descriptions and back out again.
In the end there were some real issues I and other members of the group had with Ms. Muir's discussion of Irish immigrants as well as her lack of acknowledgment of New England's involvement in the slave trade.
Still worthwhile.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov]

This book should be subtitled: How New England, without fertile soil, rich minerals or good weather has managed to succeed.

An artful combination of history and natural history that serves to highlight what we have and what we might have.

[Adam]

An ambitious and largely successful pop economic and ecological history of New England. Muir takes hundreds of years of history and breaks them into small nuggets of systems-level, quantitatively-oriented if not in much detail, stories. It has some flourish around the edges I could definitely do without, but the core of the book is exactly the kind of stuff I enjoy. In its scope and popular orientation, it feels very much like Cronon-lite. It even starts in the pre-and immediately post-colonial New England of Changes in the Land. And the logic of labor, energy, transport, and market structure that occupies the rest of the book feels much of a piece with Nature's Metropolis. Muir's no Cronon, of course; he's peerless.

She is often content with presenting pat explanations without acknowledging open questions and ambiguity. One chapter frames the question of "why is New England prosperous despite poor natural resource endowment" rather explicitly, and offers a series of more or less explanatory hypotheses without dwelling on their validity. Many of them are quite bad ("protestant work ethic"; "spirit of entrepeneurship"--one of them more or less accuses Irish immigrants of insufficient ambition and avarice) and belie the otherwise hard-nosed approach Muir takes throughout the book.

I wish she had framed this a bit more academically--engaged more with the knowledge gaps, framed her ideas with less certainty, primarily. And the scope is sort of inherently absurd; she tackles the population dynamics and energetic balance of Native Americans but also the political economy of twentieth century pollution legislation. Neither of those things are covered very well, and it would have been better for her to focus more on the colonial economy. She does a great job detailing patterns of international trade, treating things like international labor cost differences that feel more contemporary than they apparently are (Russian peasants and Chinese workers were the only groups working cheaply enough in the international economy to produce nautical-rope-quality-hemp and silk, respectively). And her treatment of the development of industry and its association with water power and the ecological consequences of dams is quite satisfying. But there are plenty of things that could have been expanded on.

[Chris Leuchtenburg]

Since I live only two miles from Bullough's Pond and know it well, I was excited to see this title. The pond isn't much of a natural wonderland, circumscribed closely by roads and chain link fences, damned and with just a drizzle of a stream, so I figured that the author would help me to appreciate even the tattered remnants of nature. So, I almost put the book aside after the first few chapters in which the pond plays almost no role. But I am glad that I didn't. The pond is referenced only occasionally to give a personal touch to this economic/ecological history of the New England landscape. But the history is quite interesting, not as fine as Changes in the Land nor as useful as Reading the Forested Landscape, but a worthy companion.

[David Hurley]

Engaging description about ecological history in New England and relevant to anyone interested in American History.

[Rob Gall]

This is an excellent read for anyone interested in either the history of New England or the evolving impact of humans on the environment. Diana Muir's personal style and intimate knowledge of historical elements both tiny and large, combined with her wry wit, make this a very engaging read. That she gets, perhaps, a bit "preachy" on toward the end is to be forgiven especially in light of the extensive research and knowledge she exhibits throughout the book.