In an era of increasing environmental awareness, Canadians are becoming more and more curious about the context of environmental action and policy. Canadian Environmental History puts into historical perspective the complex and often reciprocal relationships that develop between human societies and their environment. By studying the interplay between various historical forces—changing ideas, settlement patterns, resource use, political factors, social change, and ecology—this rigorous and provocative new volume aims to introduce students to the complexity of environmental problems.
This book recasts Canadian history in the context of the environment and encourages students to use concepts such as bioregionalism, environmentalism, and ecological theory to better understand patterns of Canadian settlement, resource use, and changing environmental sensibilities.
Features:
contributions from leading Canadian and international historians, including Colin M. Coates, Ramsay Cooke, Ken Cruikshank, and Donald Worster
critical thinking questions to spark independent thought and encourage discussion
comprehensive introductions to help contextualize each major section and orient students
further reading and relevant websites to point students toward resources for further study
Chapter One: Doing Environmental History Donald Worster Chapter Two: The Uses of Environmental History William Cronon Chapter Three: Eve: Nature and Narrative Carolyn Merchant
Chapter Four: A Death-Defying Attempt to Articulate a Coherent Definition of Environmental History Douglas R. Weiner
PART II: PRE-CONTACT ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
Chapter Five: The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492 William M. Denevan
Chapter Six: Fire Shepard Krech
PART III: BIOLOGY AND IMPERIALISM IN NORTH AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
Chapter Seven: Ecological Imperialism: The Overseas Migration of Western Europeans as a Biological Phenomenon Alfred W. Crosby
Chapter Eight: Making a Garden out of a Wilderness Ramsay Cook
Chapter Nine: Averting Disaster: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Smallpox in Western Canada during the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries Paul Hackett
PART IV: PRE-INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES AND THE CHANGING CULTURE OF NATURE
Chapter Ten: Marketing Wildlife: The Hudson’s Bay Company and the Pacific Northwest, 1821-1849 Lorne Hammond
Chapter Eleven: Like “The Thames towards Putney”: The Appropriation of Landscape in Lower Canada Colin M. Coates
Chapter Twelve: Killing the Canadian Buffalo, 1821-1881 William A. Dobak
PART V: INDUSTRIALIZATION
Chapter Thirteen: Rivers of Sawdust: The Battle over Industrial Pollution in Canada, 1865-1903 R. Peter Gillis
Chapter Fourteen: Blighted Areas and Obnoxious Industries: Constructing Environmental Inequality on an Industrial Waterfront, Hamilton, Ontario, 1890-1960 Ken Cruikshank and Nancy B. Bouchier
PART VI: SUSTAINABILITY AND CONSERVATION
Chapter Fifteen: “Let Us Heed the Voice of Youth”: Laundry Detergents, Phosphates, and the Emergence of the Environmental Movement in Ontario Jennifer Read
Chapter Sixteen: Where the Scientists Roam: Ecology, Management, and Bison in Northern Canada John Sandlos
Chapter Seventeen: Changing Ecologies: Preservation in Four National Parks, 1935-1965 Alan MacEachern
Biography
Dr. David Freeland Duke is an assistant professor and environmental historian in the Department of History and Classics at Acadia University.
“The material selected represents some of the most current Canadian contributions in environmental history. Its availability to students in a new reader is most welcome.”
