Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New EnglandWith the arrival of European explorers and settlers during the seventeenth century, Native American ways of life and the environment itself underwent radical alterations as human relationships to the land and ways of thinking about nature all changed. This colonial ecological revolution held sway until the nineteenth century, when New England's industrial production brought on a capitalist revolution that again remade the ecology, economy, and conceptions of nature in the region. In Ecological Revolutions, Carolyn Merchant analyzes these two major transformations in the New England environment between 1600 and 1860. In a preface to the second edition, Merchant introduces new ideas about narrating environmental change based on gender and the dialectics of transformation, while the revised epilogue situates New England in the context of twenty-first-century globalization and climate change. Merchant argues that past ways of relating to the land could become an inspiration for renewing resources and achieving sustainability in the future. |
From inside the book
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Page 3
... duction , reproduction , and forms of consciousness ; the processes by which they broke down ; and an analysis of the new relations between the emergent colonial or capitalist society and nonhuman nature . Two frameworks of analysis ...
... duction , reproduction , and forms of consciousness ; the processes by which they broke down ; and an analysis of the new relations between the emergent colonial or capitalist society and nonhuman nature . Two frameworks of analysis ...
Page 6
... duction , reproduction , and consciousness interact over time to bring about ecological transformations . The innermost sphere represents the ecological core within the local habitat , the site of interactions between ecology and human ...
... duction , reproduction , and consciousness interact over time to bring about ecological transformations . The innermost sphere represents the ecological core within the local habitat , the site of interactions between ecology and human ...
Page 8
... duction is the process of using the sun's energy to assimilate water , carbon dioxide , and minerals to provide energy for growth and repro- duction . Primary production by plants supplies the energy that is ulti- mately consumed by ...
... duction is the process of using the sun's energy to assimilate water , carbon dioxide , and minerals to provide energy for growth and repro- duction . Primary production by plants supplies the energy that is ulti- mately consumed by ...
Page 11
... duction of surpluses for market exchange are the primary ways in which humans interact directly with the local habitat . An ecological perspective unites human and nonhuman processes of production through exchanges of energy . The sun's ...
... duction of surpluses for market exchange are the primary ways in which humans interact directly with the local habitat . An ecological perspective unites human and nonhuman processes of production through exchanges of energy . The sun's ...
Page 12
... duction may modify and recycle matter and energy such that relative stability may be maintained within the habitat over long periods of time . On the other hand , the extraction of biotic elements ( such as beaver or white pine trees ) ...
... duction may modify and recycle matter and energy such that relative stability may be maintained within the habitat over long periods of time . On the other hand , the extraction of biotic elements ( such as beaver or white pine trees ) ...
Contents
1 | |
27 | |
The Capitalist Ecological Revolution | 147 |
APPENDIXES | 281 |
Notes | 297 |
Bibliography | 337 |
Index | 377 |
Other editions - View all
Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England Carolyn Merchant Limited preview - 1989 |
Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England Carolyn Merchant Limited preview - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
Abenaki acres Agricultural Agroecology Almanac American animals Astronomical Diary beans beaver biological reproduction Boston bushels capitalist ecological revolution cattle changes colonial ecological revolution colonists commodities Connecticut consciousness corn cosmos cows crops culture Diary earth ecofeminism ecological revolution Economy edited eighteenth century elites energy England Farmer English Environmental History ethic European farm female fertility fields fish forest Fur Trade garden Gluskabe grain Hampshire harvest human hunting Ibid improvement Island John John Winthrop labor land livestock Maine male manure Massachusetts meadows mechanistic Merchant mills mother native Americans nature nature's nonhuman Old Farmer's Almanac Oxford County pasture Penobscot percent Petersham plants plowing polycultures Population production and reproduction Puritan quotation Rhode Island River salt shaman sheep social soil southern New England subsistence symbols Thoreau tillage tion towns transformation trees tribes ture University Press vegetable Vermont wild wilderness William women wood woodland yields York