| Description |
xii, 584 p. : ill., plans ; 24 cm. |
| Series |
Weyerhaeuser environmental books |
|
Weyerhaeuser environmental book.
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (p. 509-556) and index. |
| Contents |
Satan in the land : nature, the supernatural, and disorder in colonial New England -- By the laws of nature and of nature's God: Declaring American independence -- King cotton: the cotton plant and southern slavery -- Nature's nobleman: Abraham Lincoln and the improvement of America -- The nature of Gettysburg: environmental history and the Civil War -- Iron horses: nature and the building of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad -- Atomic sublime: toward a natural history of the bomb -- The road to Brown v. Board: an environmental history of the color line -- It's a gas: the United States and the oil shock of 1973-1974. |
| Summary |
Among the historical moments revisited here, a revolutionary nation arises from its environment and struggles to reconcile the diversity of its people with the claim that nature is the source of liberty. Abraham Lincoln, an unlettered citizen from the countryside, steers the Union through a moment of extreme peril, guided by his clear-eyed vision of nature's capacity for improvement. In Topeka, Kansas, transformations of land and life prompt a lawsuit that culminates in the momentous civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education. |
| Subject |
Human ecology -- United States -- History.
|
|
Nature -- Effect of human beings on -- United States -- History.
|
|
United States -- Environmental conditions.
|
| ISBN |
0295991674 (cloth : alk. paper) |
|
9780295991672 (cloth : alk. paper) |
|
