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Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England

William Cronon (Afterword),

Tere LoPrete (Designed by),

John Putnam Demos (Foreword by)

4.08 · Rating details · 2,958 ratings · 205 reviews

The book that launched environmental history now updated.

Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize

In this landmark work of environmental history, William Cronon offers an original and profound explanation of the effects European colonists' sense of property and their pursuit of capitalism had upon the ecosystems of New England. Reissued here with an updated afterword by the aut ...more

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Paperback, Revised, 288 pages

Published September 1st 2003 by Hill & Wang (first published 1983)

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Jan 31, 2012 Becky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: environmental-history, favorites, history

How wonderfully enjoyable and informative this compact book turned out to be! Though I'm sure environmental history doesn't elicit much excitement from most people in general, I could see how most anyone could enjoy this book, at least anyone who has some curiosity as to the chain of events in nature in some fundamental ways or anyone who has an interest in the Indians' versus the settlers' ways with the land.

This book starts out describing the Native American Indians’ relationship with their e How wonderfully enjoyable and informative this compact book turned out to be! Though I'm sure environmental history doesn't elicit much excitement from most people in general, I could see how most anyone could enjoy this book, at least anyone who has some curiosity as to the chain of events in nature in some fundamental ways or anyone who has an interest in the Indians' versus the settlers' ways with the land.

This book starts out describing the Native American Indians’ relationship with their environment (in this case, the New England environment) which is very interesting in itself because of how cleverly in sync they were with what the land had to offer - that is the way they molded their way of life to fit what nature had to offer them as opposed to molding nature to fit their way of life. It reminded me of things I'd read in the books 1491 by Charles Mann and American Colonies by Alan Taylor, the first of which disappointed me due to its confusing and semi-hostile delivery, and the latter which I appreciated very much. This book greatly complimented both for me by honing in on some interesting environmental details. It was great at telling the why and how of what it told you, such as the influence of the old world system on the settlers ways of using the land and how deforestation changed soil composition in crucial ways.

I learned so much from this book. I learned what trees were valued for what such as white pines being valued for their height and straightness and their use to build ship masts. I learned that black oak worked best for the bottom of ships because it was more resistant to some of the sea life that would bore into the hulls of ships. I learned how deforestation specifically affected the soil and subsequently water shedding and flooding. I learned how livestock too wreaked havoc on the soil. In sum, I learned what occurred to the New England environment from the beginning of the settlers’ arrival with reasoning as to why it happened, whether that reasoning was good or bad, and I learned how and why the land was used in ways unique to both the Indians and the Europeans. With all the details given in this book, one clearly sees how the land was depleted and drastically changed from what it had been and one sees why this happened from both cultural and economic standpoints.

I have to admit that I occasionally ponder the idea of existing in nature a little more like how the Indians did, especially in the way that they placed a priority on mobility as opposed to accumulation of things. And I guess you could say that our world is, in its own way, evolving to a style reminiscent of this, for example, streamlining of goods & entertainment through technology, the increase in renters versus home owners, organic diets, etc. ...more

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Nov 07, 2020 Esther Espeland rated it really liked it

Rly a good companion to braiding sweetgrass! Took me forever to get through bc I was reading while annotating/looking up vocab words to help w GRE study but reminds me how much a love a history tome :’)

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Mar 25, 2015 Richard Reese rated it it was amazing

Historian William Cronon was one of a group of scholars that pioneered a new and improved way of understanding the past. Environmental history put the spotlight on many essential issues that were ignored by traditional history, and this made the sagas far more potent and illuminating.

His book, Changes in the Land, is an environmental history of colonial New England. It documents the clash of two cultures that could not have been more different, the Indians and the settlers. It describes the horr ...more

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Oct 15, 2020 Dan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: francis-parkman-prize, environment

A well written, straightforward and cogent book — really a long essay — on the environmental changes to New England after the pilgrims arrival.

Three years after Plymouth was founded there were no livestock. Ten years later however there were more livestock — cows, horses, oxen, pigs and sheep — than colonists. It became common for the average colonial ship from England to bring more than 50 large animals in its cargo.

5 stars — if you enjoy reading about the environment and history.

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Aug 22, 2007 Cat rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: historical ecologists

Shelves: culturalhistory, americanhistory

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 consid ...more

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Sep 23, 2007 Jonny rated it liked it

Shelves: personal-collection

I used this text and compared to Crosby's "Ecological Imperialism." This text offers a different approach to environmental hsitroy, once that is much more "homo-centric" if you will. Whereas Crosby discusses humans as being a small part of the bursting dam that is nature, Cronon argues that human beings are the chief agents of environmental change. I personally side with Crosby on this one, and as a result, I like Cronon's work less. But it is still a solid piece of writing in a field starving f ...more

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Jan 27, 2017 Kevin Topolovec rated it liked it

A very detailed description of every way Europeans ruined America.

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Dec 22, 2012 William Kerrigan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: colonial, nature, agriculture, favorites

William Cronon begins Changes in the Land with a discussion of a journal entry Henry David Thoreau made in January of 1855. Thoreau, a keen observer of the natural landscape, had just finished reading William Wood's New England's Prospect, a 17th century tract in which Englishman Wood describes his visit to New England in 1633. Thoreau reflects on the radical transformations that have occurred to the environment of New England since Wood's time. Thoreau concludes "When I consider . . . the theno William Cronon begins Changes in the Land with a discussion of a journal entry Henry David Thoreau made in January of 1855. Thoreau, a keen observer of the natural landscape, had just finished reading William Wood's New England's Prospect, a 17th century tract in which Englishman Wood describes his visit to New England in 1633. Thoreau reflects on the radical transformations that have occurred to the environment of New England since Wood's time. Thoreau concludes "When I consider . . . the thenobler animals have been exterminated here,--the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc.,--I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country."

It is hard to believe that Changes in the Land was published thirty years ago. It seems as fresh today as it did when I first opened it shortly after its publication. It was my first introduction to something called "environmental history," and while it may not have invented the field, it was certainly critical in popularizing it and expanding its boundaries.

Changes in the Land is not simply about the ecological transformation of the New England landscape. It is a history of European and Native American early encounters in New England that puts the natural world at the center. It was not until I read this book that I really understood that the contest between Europeans and Native Americans for control of the Americas was not so much a war waged with varied weapons technology, but a contest between to conflicting and largely incompatible ways of getting a living from the land. Ecological factors, including the introduction of Old World plants, animals, and pathogens, and well as European practices of environmental transformation, were critical in determining how this contest played out. That might seem obvious today, especially in the wake of best-selling books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. But it was not so obvious when Changes in the Land was first published. And for those who have not read it, Cronon's Changes in the Land is still a worthwhile counter-perspective to the broad, sweeping strokes painted by Diamond and others. By taking a micro-approach, and focussing exclusively on one small region, Cronon avoids the sweeping declarations that made Diamond's work so popular.

By placing environment at the center of the story, Cronon has influenced a generation of historians in varied ways. One of those ways has been to elevate the role the Euro-American farmer played in the transformation of North America over that of the role of the soldier. Had changes in the land not blazed a trail, works like Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America, The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord, and my own work,Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History, would not have followed. But ultimately, you shouldn't simply read this book because of its influence. You should read it because it is a very good read.

To learn more about the history of apples in America, check out my blog, http://americanorchard.wordpress.com ...more

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Sep 18, 2016 William rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star

A brilliant book that contextualizes and links the environmental history of New England to larger historical forces of colonization, the transAtlantic trade, and global capitalistic economy.

Cronon persuasively and effectively argues for ecological history as assuming "a dynamic and changing relationship between environment and culture" or as "dialectical"--that one cannot exist without the other (13). ...more

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Feb 11, 2021 John Nguyen rated it really liked it

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Oct 05, 2017 Max Potthoff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: environmental-history

Let me preface this by saying that I think William Cronon is the most important ecological voice of our generation. When environmental historians are piecing together the canon in one hundred years, it will go Muir, Leopold, Cronon (with many more sprinkled in between). That being said, you can tell that this was born out of a doctoral thesis. The writing isn't nearly as literary and compelling as it is in Nature's Metropolis. That being said, I derived a tremendous amount of joy reading this in ...more

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Jan 24, 2015 Samuel rated it it was amazing

Cronon is a very clear writer. His thesis is simple enough to be sustained but nuanced enough to be believable. This is a seminal work in environmental history. I will allow his preface to demonstrate: “My purpose throughout is to explain why New England habitats changed as they did during the colonial period. It is not my intention to rewrite the human history of the region: this is not a history of New England Indians, or of indian-colonial relations, or of the transformation of English coloni Cronon is a very clear writer. His thesis is simple enough to be sustained but nuanced enough to be believable. This is a seminal work in environmental history. I will allow his preface to demonstrate: “My purpose throughout is to explain why New England habitats changed as they did during the colonial period. It is not my intention to rewrite the human history of the region: this is not a history of New England Indians, or of indian-colonial relations, or of the transformation of English colonists from Puritans to Yankees….Although I attribute much of the changing ecology of New England to the colonists’ more exclusive sense of property and their involvement in a capitalist economy—both present to some extent from the 1620s onward—I do not mean to suggest that the nature of the colonial economy underwent no fundamental alterations between 1620 and 1800. It of course did, and some of those alterations, by accentuating tendencies already present, accelerated the process of ecological change. Equally importantly, the reader must be very clear that the Indians were no more static than the colonists in their activities and organization. When I describe precolonial Indian ways of life, I intend no suggestion that these were somehow ‘purer’ or more ‘Indian’ than the ways of life Indians chose (or were forced into) following their contact with colonists” (xvi).

Cronon goes on to describe not only how the Indian populations of New England (whether conscious or subconscious we don't know) maintained a much more sustainable population before colonial settlement altered their way of life and imposed a much less controlled population increase/strain upon the land, but he also focuses on the paradox that colonists saw in Indians: the natives seemed to be suffering wants in a land of plenty. Deforestation was the ultimate and most ecologically devastating effect to the region. Not only did clear-cutting (as well as girdling and burning to lesser degrees) remove forests and change the land use, but it also changed how water was stored in the region, how nutrients cycled through the soil, and how the land would be viewed and used. Worm fences--wasteful uses of wood would only be replaced by stone fences in the late 18th century as forests turned to fields were dug up and their stones along with them. Ecological changes influenced by human behaviors began well before industrialization; Native Americans caused changes in the land and then colonists did in accelerated ways. Land use is a dynamic process that can be depicted falsely as static if historians don't treat it as such:

"Although we often tend to associate ecological changes primarily with cities and factories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it should by now be clear that changes with similar roots took place just as profoundly in the farms and countrysides of the colonial period....colonists and Indians together began a dynamic and unstable process of ecological change which had in no way ended in 1800 " (170).

Finally, the afterword of the book is worth reading. It explains how the book came to be: a grad school seminar paper flushed out into a book by fortuitous circumstances. Cronon got into Yale for his History PhD intending to write about nineteenth century Chicago and its Middle West hinterlands, but instead began with his first success in writing about New England two centuries earlier. It is a lesson not only in luck and good fortune but also flexibility in research interests and running with a good idea. ...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Karen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: comps, re-read

5/26/2015 - Upon re-reading this book, I upped it to 5 stars. My appreciation for Cronon's ingenuity has grown tremendously during the intervening years in which I first read it. This work has held up incredibly well and I can see its footprint on a multitude of other historians, myself included. It's a work I should re-read every few years to remind myself to and how to thick creatively about sources and to ask the big questions of the sources I have.

7/1/2008 - Excellent academic read, but his ...more

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Dec 12, 2014 Dan Allosso rated it really liked it

Shelves: envhist

This is the first Environmental History book many students read. Partly because it’s one of the books that helped establish the field; partly because it covers a time period at the beginning of traditional American History courses (my own course includes two units before North American colonization, but lots of people still start there). Cronon begins with an introduction called “The View from Walden,” that not only acknowledges some of the changes Henry David Thoreau saw in his neighborhood, bu This is the first Environmental History book many students read. Partly because it’s one of the books that helped establish the field; partly because it covers a time period at the beginning of traditional American History courses (my own course includes two units before North American colonization, but lots of people still start there). Cronon begins with an introduction called “The View from Walden,” that not only acknowledges some of the changes Henry David Thoreau saw in his neighborhood, but explodes the idea that these changes represent some “fall” from a pristine, ahistorical initial state. The landscape is always changing, and was changed by the Indians before white people arrived. Cronon states: “There has been no timeless wilderness in a state of perfect changelessness, no climax forest in permanent stasis.” (11) Cronon criticizes first-generation ecologists for assuming that all systems tend toward a stable equilibrium, and also for assuming “humanity was somehow outside the ideal climax community.” (10) This may be unfair to ecologists, who recognized their error and developed more complicated systems theories, but it’s an instructive metaphor for historians.

Cronon’s economic argument centers on the idea that European visitors’ and colonists’ response to New England was colored by their cultural baggage (valuation of the abundance they discovered was influenced by scarcity back home, as in the case of timber and firewood), and on the assertion that the colonists were part of a transatlantic capitalist market and drew the Indians into it as well (in his afterword, written on the twentieth anniversary of publication, Cronon seems to regret the slightly oversimplified depiction of “capitalism”). The pre-colonial landscape he describes is quite different from the trackless wilderness I’d always imagined, and Cronon’s detailed descriptions of the difference is one of the most attractive features of the book. Along the way, I picked up a lot of interesting details: for example, that the colonists were generally healthier and longer-lived than the people they left behind, since they were no longer exposed to the European disease environment (24). Of course, the diseases the colonists brought with them killed 90-100% of the Indians in many affected villages. But the Puritan settlers saw this as a sign of their God’s providence. (90)

Cronon observes that “Many European visitors were struck by what seemed to them the poverty of Indians who lived in the midst of a landscape endowed so astonishingly with abundance.” (33) He argues this is a misunderstanding of the Indian approach to life and land use. In a passage that reminds me a lot of Colin Tudge’s argument about agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers in Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers, Cronon says that not only did the Indians have a noncommercial value-system that led them to shun accumulation, but they were actually managing their environment in sophisticated ways that the colonists completely failed to recognize. Burning the forest understory created “edge” environments preferred by game animals. Gardening in “tangles” of maize, beans, and squash maximized crop yields, reduced erosion, and increased soil fertility (relative to the colonists’ monoculture). (43, 51)

Cronon’s point is that the Indians had a more stable, sustainable approach to their environment than did the colonists. He frequently accuses the colonists of “mining” the soil, but the fact that their society treated land as a commodity doesn’t necessarily mean that individual farmers deliberately set out to put short-term gains before sustainability. Cronon may be leaning too heavily on Frederick Jackson Turner when he assumes the colonists all simply planned on moving west when they’d exhausted their farms.

The Indian approach clearly required mobility, which made it incompatible with settled European agricultural culture. In another passage that Tudge echoes in his 1998 book, Cronon contrasts the Indians’ seasonal migrations with the colonists’ construction of fences – even their pastoralism was sedentary! Cronon admits that Indian “conservation…was less the result of an enlightened ecological sensibility than of the Indians’ limited social definition of ‘need.’” (98) He invokes Leibig’s Law to explain low Indian population densities (“biological populations are limited not by the total annual resources available to them but by the minimum amount that can be found at the scarcest time of year” 41), but doesn’t elaborate on the mechanism of population control (was it by restricting fertility, or by the starving of the weak?). Clearly, though, the Indians are the “good guys” in Cronon’s account. (I don’t disagree, I’m just pointing it out)

The second half of the book continues these arguments but doesn’t extend them much. Cronon throws in several interesting items for me, though. Springfield, begun by William Pynchon in 1636, was the latest in a string of “fur posts” on the Connecticut River. (99) English colonists who had been restricted by the Game Laws in their home country, overhunted to the point that “Hunting with us,” said Timothy Dwight, “exists chiefly in the tales of other times.” (101) A typical New England household consumed thirty to forty cords of firewood a year.” (120) “Roads…were typically between 99 and 165 feet wide…since they facilitated moving large herds to market.” (140) And Narragansett sachem Miantonomo made a speech in 1642 that complained about ecological degradation and warned “we shall all be starved” (162), so the colonists assassinated him in 1643. Overall, Changes in the Land is a very good read. Cronon makes a strong case for and environmental understanding of early America, and the book helped establish the field of Environmental History in the US. ...more

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May 27, 2019 Beth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I'm fascinated by the natural environment. What I learned in this book was you can't let nature just be nature if you intend on using it. The Native Americans knew this and treated the land in a way to make sure they could continue using it to live off. The other thing I took from this book was perspective, we know how things are now and read history with a current perspective, we know how it turned out, well the folks back then were living it and it was their reality. They did not have a crysta ...more

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May 04, 2017 Jen rated it really liked it

I found this to be an entirely fascinating read on the environmental/ecological history of colonial New England. Oddly enough, it answered quite a few questions I had pondered over since moving here five years ago. Highly recommend!

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Jan 13, 2021 Sam Gilbert rated it really liked it

Shelves: american-indian-history

A book to revolutionize one’s thinking. Yet it is just a rough sketch, a set of ideas not yet worked into a comprehensive thought. Like too many historians, Cronon allowed the details to dominate without bending them to his will.

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Feb 29, 2020 J. Jones rated it it was amazing

A great book, which saddens the soul to see how the new world's natural world was ruined by greed and miss-management. ...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Isabel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, ecology

I thought this book was incredible. After reading it, I can't stop looking at things around me differently, so automatically it got a 5 star from me. Some of the material can get a little dense, but the author breaks it down and analyzes it regularly and walks the reader along in his conclusions, most of which I was formulating at the time, anyway.

The final chapter was a great cap to the whole book. His ultimate conclusion, which was the one I was coming to terms with bit by bit through the page I thought this book was incredible. After reading it, I can't stop looking at things around me differently, so automatically it got a 5 star from me. Some of the material can get a little dense, but the author breaks it down and analyzes it regularly and walks the reader along in his conclusions, most of which I was formulating at the time, anyway.

The final chapter was a great cap to the whole book. His ultimate conclusion, which was the one I was coming to terms with bit by bit through the pages is that even though we believe environmental degradation started in the 1800s with the Industrial Revolution, it was actually well on its way when the first English settler imported land grazing animals and their economic way of life into a land that was not initially suited to it. The ramifications continue to effect us today.

I had always associated the colonies with self sufficiency and independence, but in reality, it was an offshoot of an economy that had already ground up its natural and human resources. In order to "prosper" the English colonists continued to interface with English markets and commodification in a proto-global economy.

The author addresses alien species (animal, vegetable, and mircroorganism), societal conflice, legal mismatches, economic imbalance... all of it!

I'm still sorting out how the impact of English settlement altered the landscape, which in turn irrevocably changed the entire lifestyle of the Native Americans who had established a symbiotic relationship with it. The environmental balance was tipped and to this day our settlement patterns, politics and economy spill over and tumble chaotically in a direction that has led to environmental degradation, climate change, poverty, food shortages... the list goes on and on. How strange to be able to trace it back over 500 years...

"The colonial interaction of forests, furbearers, hunters, axes, grazing animals, plows, crops, weeds--and the rival ways of owning and selling these things--all contributed to a redrawn map of New England." W. Cronan. Not sure if that constitutes a "spoiler," but that, in a sentence is what this book sets out to illustrate and it did an awesome job of it.

Fact: corroborated that an Indian (I've already forgotten the name) was essentially orphaned when his entire village died due to illness brought by the English. This left him in receptive to joining the English and assisting them. ...more

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May 26, 2018 Runyan Xu rated it really liked it

William Cronon’s work, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England which was published in 1983, discusses the shifts of plants and animals because of European settlers’ arrival which reflects the history of the ecology and economy of colonial New England, human society influence on this region, and the relationship between environment and cultures. The main argument of this book is to indicate that both motivations of both Native Indians and Europeans are based on the William Cronon’s work, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England which was published in 1983, discusses the shifts of plants and animals because of European settlers’ arrival which reflects the history of the ecology and economy of colonial New England, human society influence on this region, and the relationship between environment and cultures. The main argument of this book is to indicate that both motivations of both Native Indians and Europeans are based on the economic desires by analyzing differences in lifestyles, agricultural practices, hunting habits and land use. He establishes the thesis by using a variety of evidence throughout the book. This book makes a great contribution of piece up some important concepts with works from a wide range of disciplines.
Cronon starts his argument with the analysis of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. The analysis on Walden’s work about human impacts on the environment is the perfect prologue for Cronon to start his argument about changes caused by the European settlers in New England. Nature means more than the physical environment for Cronon like he said “a changed landscape meant a loss of wildness and virility that was ultimately spiritual in its import, a sign of declension in both nature and humanity”(Cronon, 4). The changes in the environment convert residents’ attitudes, spiritual beliefs, and cultures. Environment changes the culture and the culture changes human impacts on the environment. As Cronon explains, “environment may initially shape the range of choices available to a people at a given moment, but then culture reshapes environment in responding to those choices”(Cronon, 13). Cronon continues the argument by providing historical evidence about the ecological impact of Europeans settlers and discusses the ecological and economic status as Europeans arrival. Before the Europeans’ arrival, nature was open and kept so with Native Indians’ management ideas. Europeans shipped the natural resources they found valuable in New England to Europe with the thinking of the land as a commodity. The ideas the European settlers had from their culture and tradition affect their thinking of the natural things which is the nature as goods to gain profit and wealth.
The difference between European and Indian cultures causes the dramatic changes in the environment at New England. Historical records and reports offer valuable evidence for Cronon’s argument. Some records attempted to make the colonies seem more attractive to Europeans and tend to focus on merchantable commodities. For example, the early description of New England was “saw only areas within easy reach of the coast “ and “the interior remained blank.”(Cronon, 19). The large areas of uncultivated land, dense forest coverage, and absence of domesticated animals let Europeans sniff a fresh opportunity when wide landscape belongs to the Crown, exhaust timbers as fuel back home, and livestocks play a significant role in Europe. Europeans destroyed the forest for agriculture and introduced European domesticated animal at a fast pace. It pushed high pressure on the environment. Trees’ leaves and roots help with reducing the runoff and soil erosion, which is a significant part of preventing flooding. Deforestation affected the climates, local water system, and soil health. Degrading land use such as the overgrazing and deforestation mentioned in this book can lead to desertification and flooding which are both water-driven natural disasters. Indians’ nomadic lifestyle leads them to only have necessities and low economy requirement. Their way of seasonal hunting and acquiring food from the nature gives the nature time and opportunity to recover and species to reproduce. The comparison of two different treatments implicates that European settlers’ actions have the destructive influence on the New England ecosystem.
From Cronon’s point of view, the environmental changes can be considered as a story of the triumph of capitalism and commodification of the nature. Native Indians changed the landscape by using fire to clear certain woodland areas but it was less destructive than the transformation did by Europeans. Soil fertility increases with low-intensity fires because the fires convert nutrients in dead plant and soil microorganisms change as well when the mineralization affected by the fires. The way how they use the land and decide whether overlapping groups can occupy depends on how they used the land. Fish, berries, and timber are not property to own, but part of the land. On the other hand, Europeans brought a system which land was a private commodity and a component of individual’s wealth. Commodification of the nature is not only on land, but also on other parts of the ecosystem. The fur trade is an example Cronon mainly discusses. In Europeans’ opinion, the fur trade encourages Native Indian to hunt and exchanging the furs to obtain status. It promotes the development of society as well. Europeans create a new forest ecology with their experience in Europe. They destroy the older forest and replace it with their idealized model. The mono-culture demolishes the diverse ecology when the land is covered by grasses and crops introduced from Europe. They considered this as making progress, but it was complete destruction for the people who lived for years.
This book offers a good instruction for understanding the environmental degradation in the future. In order to coherently explore the environmental change and respond to crises, it is necessary to understand the relation of nature, political organization, economic structure, and social factors. The world is built up by these factors and none alone functions by itself. Another advantage of this book is that the language is easy to understand, even for the reader don’t have much professional knowledge. The conclusions drawn from this book are effective and can be considered as timeless such as the capitalist economy induced the exploitation.
Cronon comprehensively discusses the history of European-caused environmental changes, but the analysis from the viewpoint of Native Indians was inadequate. Most of the reasons for environmental changes at New England talked about were created by Europeans. There are some limits on the Native Indians’ side to explain their compromise between traditions and new forms of properties. The motivation of Native Indians to satisfy the European market demands has not been discussed in this book either. Compare to the European culture altered the ecosystem at New England discussed, environmental changes caused by the possible changed Native Indian culture after the destruction of their autonomy and ecological relationship are missing. Cronon also falls short of the explorations about Europeans’ non-economic reason of overbroad expansion at the beginning.
Overall, Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England presents the changing circumstances in New England’s communities and builds up an interdisciplinary analysis of land and human influenced each other. Although it was written thirty-five years ago, the concepts conclude from it and method of thinking about the human relationship with nature are useful and meaningful for the researches today and in the future. ...more

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Feb 04, 2019 Elle & J. Reads rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, books-i-own

Changes in the Land was helpful to me and greatly expanded my knowledge on Native American history because it was the study of the ecological system in America and how human contact with the environment both had a positive and negative impact on the climate and environment.

Normally we study the history of the United States or American Indian history through a political or religious perspective, but this book was the study of such history from a purely ecological one. It was very interesting and ...more

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Jul 07, 2016 Don rated it liked it

Shelves: history

This is certainly a great book, and by most measures, it's the book that really started blending disciplines together to create logical and more complete historical narratives. Think 1491 (and 1493), and even Guns, Germs, and Steel ... All the way to Big History!

Well, William Cronon wrote this book in 1983 -- when most environmental writing was still considered far off on the left wing in tree hugger territory. This, however, showed a much deeper understanding amid recognition of how humans and ...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Timothy Hill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An excellent and fascinating study. My only quibbles would be:

(1) The book is somewhat dated; while I'm not an ecologist or biologist, I feel reasonably certain our scientific knowledge and ability to reconstruct past ecosystems has improved in the last thirty years. It's time for a second, updated edition!

(2) The author to my mind struggles excessively not to portray the Native Americans as victims of European expansionism. At several points he states explicitly that Native Americans were not s ...more

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Feb 16, 2010 Sara rated it it was amazing

This is a great ecological history of the transitions that occurred in the ecology of New England when colonists settled the land. Cronon does a great job of including human decisions, deliberate and unintended, in the narrative. There was a lot of interesting information here, and it's presented in a readable and thought-provoking way.

The dynamics of human interaction with ecosystems, both by Indians and British, are explored in detail and he carefully refutes the concept that any of the descri ...more

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Jul 23, 2009 Claire rated it it was amazing

Shelves: american-history-of-interest, favorites

It may just be impossible to overstate the importance of this book and its detailed but succinct uncovering of the way Indians and Europeans interacted with the land of New England and with each other, critically historizing all three characters. For use in a undergraduate course, even to frame a lecture, this book can be used to challenge students' preconceived notions of static or ahistorical systems as dynamic, with all human characters endowed with agency. I've read this short volume countle ...more

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Jul 26, 2011 ☯Emily Ginder rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science

This was required reading in an environmental history class. It was readable and enjoyable. This will supplement any Colonial history you already know about New England. It begins with a description of the New World land and its abundant animals before the Pilgrims came. Within a century the abundance was gone, the land "tamed" and the Indians forced off the land. Cronon gives a balanced analysis of why these changes occurred. Surprisingly, all these changes occurred before the Industrial Revolu ...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Andrew added it

Shelves: history, environmental-history

The story of Changes in the Land is nowhere near as deep as that of Nature’s Metropolis. I’m a sucker for environmental history, but this wasn’t terribly enlightening. Yes, American colonists sucked at land management, squandered resources, and introduced invasive species and diseases. I certainly was aware of that. Really, I was far more interested in the descriptions of Indian lifeways, and how they sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally established sustainable patterns of existenc ...more

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Jan 30, 2016 Kai rated it it was amazing

Excellent.
Cronon seeks to dispel notions of a precolonial New England in permanent wilderness stasis, with 'noble Indians' living in perfect harmony with nature. At the same time he ties the introduction of capitalism with European arrival, of viewing the land and its products principally as commodities.
He clearly shows how colonial attitudes toward the land set the stage for how many Americans act even today.

"Ecological abundance and economic prodigality went hand in hand; the people of plenty ...more

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Sep 24, 2018 Pippa rated it really liked it

Other than a great oversimplification of a vast group of people ie: Native people, the book makes some very interesting points, but often leaves something to be desired in its connections to social history.

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Jun 26, 2016 Genevieve rated it it was amazing

Groundbreaking work of environmental history. Precise, succinct and well-written.

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About William Cronon

William Cronon

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William "Bill" Cronon is a noted environmental historian, and the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was president of the American Historical Association (AHA) in 2012. ...more