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. |
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Page xx
... pasture manure , textile refuse , dyes , and sewage ; it spawned water- and airborne diseases , fouled the air with smoke , and devastated fish runs . The new industrial system of production stimulated a reaction in the spheres of ...
... pasture manure , textile refuse , dyes , and sewage ; it spawned water- and airborne diseases , fouled the air with smoke , and devastated fish runs . The new industrial system of production stimulated a reaction in the spheres of ...
Page 31
... pastures than the adjacent lowlands . The mountain forests with their cold lakes and fast - running streams provided farms in their flat , meadowed intervales as well as resources for hunters , fishers , and lumberers ( Map 2.2 ) .5 The ...
... pastures than the adjacent lowlands . The mountain forests with their cold lakes and fast - running streams provided farms in their flat , meadowed intervales as well as resources for hunters , fishers , and lumberers ( Map 2.2 ) .5 The ...
Page 36
... pasture edges , followed by slender gray birches and black cherries . After these pioneers have established themselves , hardwoods like the oaks , hickories , white ash , and maples begin to return . In the pine zone , white pine seeds ...
... pasture edges , followed by slender gray birches and black cherries . After these pioneers have established themselves , hardwoods like the oaks , hickories , white ash , and maples begin to return . In the pine zone , white pine seeds ...
Page 38
... pastures and parklike groves , according to European colonizers , made " the country very beautiful and commodious , " so that " scarce a bush or bramble or any cumber- some underwood " was to be seen . ' 14 The vegetable , animal , and ...
... pastures and parklike groves , according to European colonizers , made " the country very beautiful and commodious , " so that " scarce a bush or bramble or any cumber- some underwood " was to be seen . ' 14 The vegetable , animal , and ...
Page 87
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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