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 81
Page xviii
... tion and reproduction became less fluid , splitting production and re- production into separate spheres . Men worked in and managed an increasingly amoral capitalist system , while middle - class women as social reproducers symbolized ...
... tion and reproduction became less fluid , splitting production and re- production into separate spheres . Men worked in and managed an increasingly amoral capitalist system , while middle - class women as social reproducers symbolized ...
Page xx
... tion of greater human control over nonhuman nature . In the analysis of Theodore Steinberg , nature became increasingly " incorporated . " “ The thrust of New England's history , " he wrote , “ tended toward . . . [ a ] thoroughgoing ...
... tion of greater human control over nonhuman nature . In the analysis of Theodore Steinberg , nature became increasingly " incorporated . " “ The thrust of New England's history , " he wrote , “ tended toward . . . [ a ] thoroughgoing ...
Page xxiii
... tion process , and to suggest goals for restoring health to the planet . Ecological Revolutions explores for the New World some of the themes of my earlier book , The Death of Nature : Women , Ecology , and the Scientific Revolution ...
... tion process , and to suggest goals for restoring health to the planet . Ecological Revolutions explores for the New World some of the themes of my earlier book , The Death of Nature : Women , Ecology , and the Scientific Revolution ...
Page 1
... tion came to New England in a tenth of that time through revolution . This book delineates the characteristics of two types of ecological revolution - colonial and capitalist - through the study of the New En- gland exemplar . Yet the ...
... tion came to New England in a tenth of that time through revolution . This book delineates the characteristics of two types of ecological revolution - colonial and capitalist - through the study of the New En- gland exemplar . Yet the ...
Page 3
... tion of stable worldviews in science that exist over relatively long periods of time , but that are rapidly transformed during periods of crisis and stress . One of its limitations is its failure to incorporate an interpretation of ...
... tion of stable worldviews in science that exist over relatively long periods of time , but that are rapidly transformed during periods of crisis and stress . One of its limitations is its failure to incorporate an interpretation of ...
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