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
Results 1-5 of 51
Page xvi
... males are actors in the unfolding of environmental history has challenged tra- ditional histories and inspired new tellings of old tales . Beyond the inclusion of nature itself as an actor - the very foundation of envi- ronmental ...
... males are actors in the unfolding of environmental history has challenged tra- ditional histories and inspired new tellings of old tales . Beyond the inclusion of nature itself as an actor - the very foundation of envi- ronmental ...
Page xvii
... male - dominated plow agriculture , and corn mother consciousness gave way to the male God of Puritan religion . Settlers incorporated the native corn , beans , and squash triad into their own tetrad of wheat , barley , oats , and rye ...
... male - dominated plow agriculture , and corn mother consciousness gave way to the male God of Puritan religion . Settlers incorporated the native corn , beans , and squash triad into their own tetrad of wheat , barley , oats , and rye ...
Page 2
... male God for the Indians ' animistic fabric of symbolic exchanges between people and nature . The second transformation , a capitalist ecological revolution , took place roughly between the American Revolution and about 1860. It was ...
... male God for the Indians ' animistic fabric of symbolic exchanges between people and nature . The second transformation , a capitalist ecological revolution , took place roughly between the American Revolution and about 1860. It was ...
Page 9
... male and female principles ; the hermaphrodite was the androgynous unity of the op- posites , the alchemic marriage of the masculine sun and feminine moon . Giordano Bruno ( 1548–1600 ) viewed change as a movement between contraries ...
... male and female principles ; the hermaphrodite was the androgynous unity of the op- posites , the alchemic marriage of the masculine sun and feminine moon . Giordano Bruno ( 1548–1600 ) viewed change as a movement between contraries ...
Page 16
... male elders ( sachems and shamans ) usually bore the responsibility for decision making within the tribe and for negotiations with neighboring tribes . Under colonialism , men held the positions of responsibility within the town ...
... male elders ( sachems and shamans ) usually bore the responsibility for decision making within the tribe and for negotiations with neighboring tribes . Under colonialism , men held the positions of responsibility within the town ...
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