The Saga of Hugh Glass: Pirate, Pawnee, and Mountain Man

Book Description

Before his most fabulous adventure (celebrated by John G. Neihardt in The Song of Hugh Glass and by Frederick Manfred in Lord Grizzly), Hugh Glass was captured by the buccaneer Jean Lafitte and turned pirate himself until his first chance to escape. Soon he fell prisoner to the Pawnees and lived for four years as one of them before he managed to make his way to St. Louis. Next he joined a group of trappers to open up the fur-rich, Indian-held territory of the Upper Missouri River. Then unfolds the legend of a man who survived under impossible conditions: robbed and left to die by his comrades, he struggled alone, unarmed, and almost mortally wounded through two thousand miles of wilderness.

Customer Reviews:

Not a novel.......2006-03-08

When I bought this book, for some reason I thought it was a novel about Hugh Glass. Instead it is a history book. Dull and boring as far as I was concerned. I did not finish reading it. Gave it away.To me it was a waste of money.

Hugh Glass: Elevated to immortality by a grizzly bear.......2005-12-08

Sometimes all it takes is a single spectacular event to catapult a man into the sphere of immortality. That's what happened to Hugh Glass, thanks to a grizzly bear.

Little is known about Glass's life up to the time he joined William Ashley's first expedition up the Missouri River in 1823. Rumor had it that he was a pirate with Jean Lafite, but it can't be substantiated. After being wounded by the Arikaras in 1823, he went with Andrew Henry's party overland to the Yellowstone River.

It was on this trip that destiny struck. He was attacked and mauled badly by a grizzly bear; two other mountain men, John Fitzgerald and James Bridger, were left with him to tend him in what everyone assumed would be his final hours. But the two men abandoned Glass before his time had come, and Glass held on to life alone. Somehow he crawled 300 miles down the Grand River, living on berries and buffalo carcasses left by wolves, eventually reaching Fort Kiowa on the Missouri.

After recovering from his wounds, Glass set off on a trail of revenge. He ventured to Fort Henry where he suspected Fitzgerald and Bridger to be, only to find the place deserted. More death-defying traipsing resulted until he tracked down Bridger on the Big Horn River; learning that Bridger was only 20 years old, he Glass decided to forgive him. He also learned that Fitzgerald had gone into the army and was beyond his reach. Disappointed in these results, little did he realize that a legend had been born.

During subsequent years Glass trapped throughout the West, being wounded again in an Indian attack near Bear Lake and thereafter became a hunter for Fort Union (ND). Sometime in the winter of 1832-33 he, along with two other men, was killed by Indians on the Yellowstone River.

The accomplishments of other mountain men far outweighed Glass's, but it was his encounter with that grizzly and his incredible survival of the mauling that assured his name would be added to the pantheon of Western heroes. Frederick Manfred wrote a book-length poem based on Glass's feat, but this book by Myers is broader in scope and fuller in detail. There is a long introductory chapter on the legendary aspect of Hugh Glass that places him in the scheme of things. Myers is an excellent writer, but the book contains no footnotes (annotation of some kind would be useful) and no index. Other than that, the book is a Western classic and will be enjoyed by anyone interested in this legendary character or in the fur trade period of the early West. Highly recommended.

A nifty saga..........2005-04-26

My previous exposure to John Myers Myers consists of his two works of fiction (Silverlock and The Harp and the Blade), both of which I enjoyed greatly and have treasured. I knew that he'd written historical books like this, but had never run across one. A review on Amazon tipped me off to this book.

Myers has a very peculiar, particular voice which he uses a great deal early in this slim volume (his text settles back into a more mainstream flow as the pages fly by), which is a little odd, but somewhat amusing. He wears his heart on his sleeve and it is quite clear what he thinks of his sources, of the historical characters, and so on. Balanced and nuanced this book ain't!

But then maybe it shouldn't be. Here is a story that just seems too tall a tale, right up there with a certain large lumberjack and his technicolor ox or stretched from the same cloth as Dan'l Boone was in Fess Parker's portrayal, about a man who wouldn't say quit come pirates, bears, or (forgive the era that spawned it) "wild" Indians. Hugh Glass, if you've never heard of him, might have been the greatest of the mountain men.

Myers builds a pretty good case for the man and his adventures having taken place. Here's a hero I hadn't really encountered before and Myers make his legend believable without ruining exploits worthy of campfire retellings. Not too big a book, just right. I recommend it (in spite of Myers's oddities).

A Legend Revived.......2005-01-17

Mountain man Hugh Glass was a legend to his peers, many of them legends themselves. His fame spread to the East, where his incredible story was told in the newspapers of Philadelphia. His legend entered the lore of Indian tribes as well, where it was still being told many decades after his passing. But with the coming of the 20th century, Hugh's legend faded into obscurity. John Myers Myers' The Saga of Hugh Glass is an excellent attempt to rescue Hugh from the obscurity that he had faded into and restore him to his rightful place among American frontier legends.
The central tale of Hugh's legend is almost too fantastic to be believed. Attacked and mauled to the point of death by a grizzly bear, he was left in the wilderness to die by companions who robbed him of his rifle, knife, tomahawk, flint, and nearly all the tools necessary for survival in the wild. Yet Hugh, though horribly wounded, near death and weaponless, navigated over 300 miles of virgin wilderness back to a frontier outpost. Then, after refitting with weapons and equipment, and before his wounds were fully healed, he set out into the wilderness alone once more to make an incredible solo winter journey to retrieve his precious rifle and take vengeance on the companions who had robbed and abandoned him.
Many historians had discounted this story as balderdash - nothing more than the outlandish boasting of a blowhard's self-aggrandizement. Myers addresses this in the first section of his book, carefully assembling the remaining evidence, and building a powerful case for the veracity of the legend. Before launching into Hugh's story, he has already reasonably established that though fantastic, the story you are about to read is true, not just another tall tale.
John Myers Myers is a favorite author of mine. Though he thoroughly researched his histories, he had nothing of the academic about him when telling a tale. He was a pure folk historian, and his writing style is utterly idiosyncratic, and resembles nothing more than a grizzled old story teller telling tales around the fire. His prose is loaded throughout with colorful phrases - "pickled in print", "throwing lead", and "not a bet on which Lloyds of London would risk a confederate dollar". These are just a small sampling of Myers' unique voice. For ears accustomed to more traditional forms of history, his rambling and folksy style may be off-putting. I, however, find it perfectly suited to his subject matter and a charming and refreshing change of pace from the ordinary.
This book should be of great interest for those who study the period of the mountain men and fur trade. It should be on the bookshelf of anyone who loves tales of great American legends. And it is highly recommended reading for anyone who loves stories of amazing true adventure told well.

Theo Logos

Entertaining.......2003-05-15

This is an enjoyable read of an early day fur trapper and his adventures (misadventures) in the uncharted wilderness. I must agree with some reviewers that the author can be quite quirky in his writing style with offbeat, way-out puns and phraseology, but nevertheless a good read. Myers justifies the many hardships of Hugh Glass through several second hand sources for those unbelievers of this somewhat, but not, fictional character. Glass was captured by pirates, escaped, then was captured by the Pawnees and later lived with them for some years. He then left the Pawnees and joined Ashley's fur expeditions to the Rockies. Many a narrow escape with Indians, but probably the most celebrated adventure of his life was the mauling by a grizzly and the ensuing tales thereof. One reviewer mentioned how they should make a movie out of this book. Well, they did, many years ago. "Man in the Wilderness" starring Richard Harris is based on Hugh Glass and his heroic adventure with the grizzly.

Pirate, Pawnee, and mountain man;: The saga of Hugh Glass

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Pirate, Pawnee, and mountain man;: The saga of Hugh Glass
John Myers Myers
Manufacturer: Little, Brown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

The 2nd SS Division was an elite, highly trained fighting force that saw action in some of World War II's bloodiest battles. Especially in the Eastern front, these often included close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat. Starting with the organization and recruitment of the division and following it throughout the war, the story of this evil but powerful force unfolds through reminiscences by many of the unit's men, along with photographs and other memorabilia.

Customer Reviews:

The MILITARY role .......2007-09-17

I purchased this book because it advertised itself as being 'The Military Role' of the 2ND SS division. I was not disappointed, it outlined the military role of the Das Reich division, its beginning and its end. The Pros: the personal accounts and letters. The Cons: a bit dry and hard to read at times. True to its subtitle it avoided the non-military aspects. While it was not one of the best books I have read I did not regret purchasing it.

This book is recommended for the casual reader of WWII history who is interested in the military role of the 2nd SS division and how it was formed. If you have done extensive WWII reading a book similar to Hubert Meyer's history on the 12 SS is recommended as Lucas' book is geared more for a beginner in my humble opinion.

Thin volume on big subject.......2006-04-30

Lucas's unit history of the Das Reich SS Panzer Division covers the activities of the unit from the point of its formation as a quasi-private Nazi party band of hoods through its transformation during the war into one of the most fearsome military machines yet deployed. He utilizes substantial numbers of excerpts from other, far more detailed unit histories written by some of the unit's various commanders and soldiers to explore some of the ways in which recruits were turned into soldiers, and how the mystique and aura, the camaraderie of the SS, made them into a force of incredible toughness and cohesion.

What he does not do is explain how these same soldiers also could too often turn into ruthless criminals, and how they embodied not just the virtues of military excellence but also the worst features of the Nazi belief system. They may not have been in the same class as concentration camp commanders, but they were not blameless. No Jews died at Oradour sur Glane.

In a volume of this size obviously Lucas could not address each and every action, good and bad, of a unit whose history extends from before the first day of the war to the last. In general the book is a fast and easy read, and as a general introduction to the subject works well. It certainly helps to have a bit of prior knowledge of the flow and events of the war, as the unit jumps from place to place with little explanation of the general strategic situation. Some subjects are well covered - the initial recruitment and training of the first units, Manstein's 'backhand blow' around Kharkov, the final battles in Vienna and Prague - and others less so. The ideological component of the training is left out, there is a glaring lack of coverage of some of the more outrageous atrocities committed, and more detailed information on the changes in weaponry and equipment would have been welcome.

The maps are terrible, the appendix listing the divisional commanders does not include any information on the post-war period, and the bibliography is thin. The book is not in the same class as Sydnor's 'Soldiers of Destruction' single-volume unit history of Totenkopf Division. Nonetheless it is still worth reading.

OK.......2005-08-29

I picked up this book after reading Steel Inferno, which was pretty good, and was somewhat dissappointed. The maps in this book are terrible. If your looking for an in depth study of tactics and the battles fought by the SS, this book is not for you. However if you like reading personal accounts with unit history mixed in it, you would probably like this book. The author, however, is very selective in his choice of personal accounts. All of them make the SS look like a very nice and sometimes victimized organization. On the whole it was somewhat entertaining.

History without context.......2003-04-05

I have recently finished this book, and I must echo the others in their criticism of its inability to answer any difficult questions. I was also put off by spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and bad maps. (The incessant use of "gain touch" when "gain contact" was the intended words were especially irritating.) It succeeded in its goal of being a history of the "Military Role" of 'Das Reich,' but I found it was just that - a chronological order of some of the engagements 'Das Reich' fought in. History without context to the greater conflict surrounding the division.

--Mike

To Judge Evil, One Must First Label It as Evil.......2003-01-20

The fighting arm of the SS, the Waffen SS, were really no more than a microcosm of the Nazi state itself. Under Adolf Hitler, the entire military, political, economic, and philosophical underpinning of his warped National Socialistic viewpoint was dedicated to world conquest and racial cleansing. The regular German Army units, the Wehrmacht, were given the majority of the responsibility for the first, but Hitler assigned the second to his more trusted arm, the Waffen SS. In DAS REICH, James Lucas chronicles the rise and fall of one of Hitler's most infamous units, the 2nd SS, known as 'Das Reich.' Since the end of the war, historians have had some moral and ethical difficulties in evaluating and judging the phenomenon that was an inextricable part of the Nazi machinery that led to the deaths of millions of innocent non-combatants. Lucas addresses this difficulty in his preface as he notes: "To present an objective history of an SS division attracted violent criticism because the general public accepted, without question, that the whole SS organization was criminal and, thus by inference, each man who had served in it was a felon." Not only does Lucas attack the view that the public ought to evaluate the Waffen SS as a military collection of felons, he defends it on the grounds of its fighting prowess. Lucas notes that 'the physical, mental, and moral standards were set so high that only a minority of those who volunteered were accepted.' It is difficult for the reader to accept such indirect praise without a numbing sense of disbelief. If the moral bar for each potential SS recruit were so high, then I would like to know what scale Lucas used to establish who got in and who did not. Reichsfuhrer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, made it crystal clear that the entire apparatus of the SS was set to match the racial theories of Hitler. Any recruit who did not see eye to eye with that would not have been given a chance to prove his combat readiness in the first place.

'Das Reich' was actually quite similar to other well-known SS regiments: 'Leibstandardt,' 'Totenkampf,' and 'Germania.' No one questions, and I certainly do not contest that any Waffen SS division was not a formidable fighting force. For Hitler, and presumably for Lucas as well, such prowess was in and of itself quite sufficient to justify its existence and excuse its excesses during the Second World War. Such excesses can easily be buried under a mountain of charts, interviews, and statistics that inevitably accompany any major battle. In Lucas' first chapter, 'The Campaign in Poland,' he presents a side of the campaign that might have been written by Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The attacking SS forces are described as heroically 'exposing themselve to a Polish fire which struck them as soon as they began their uphill advance.' What emerges from this account is a story that is only partly told. Nowhere in this book, does Lucas address the troubling and thoroughly documented evidence that all arms of the SS were involved in the genocide that we now call the Holocaust. Lucas' ommissions are breathtaking: the Blitzkrieg, the camps, the bloody slaughters in Poland and Russia, the Malmedy Massacre in France. To a new generation that sees such a blackbooted organization as 'Das Reich' only in the glowing terms that Lucas presents, then the generation following that generation may retrod down a bitter path that ought never have been visited in the first place.

Book Description

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"Solinger is impressively optimistic about America's potential not only to evolve into 'a country of reproductive justice,' but also to overcome centuries of the sex, race, and class prejudice that have literally built our society.'
—Bitch

"A concise historical overview. . . . Based primarily on a vast array of well-documented secondary sources, this book is a well-written and useful overview of the politics behind pregnancy in the U.S. . . . Highly recommended."
—Choice

"This succinct, highly readable political and cultural history of a wide range of reproductive issues is a near-perfect primer on the topic."
—Publishers Weekly

Â”The book is well documented and well written... I expect this book to find a place in many classrooms.Â”
— The Journal of American History

"Rickie Solinger puts today's 'culture wars' over abortion, birth control and sex education into a historical context that is rich, complex and full of surprises. A deeply researched-and highly readable-book that should reach the widest possible audience."
—Katha Pollitt, author of Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture

"An extraordinary accomplishment. In a courageous exploration of American history, Solinger demonstrates how public supervision of sex and social reproduction have served to maintain racial privilege."
—Alice Kessler-Harris, author of In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America

" Pregnancy and Power definitively demolishes the myth that reproductive politics has ever been about women's choice. Rickie Solinger's brilliant and comprehensive analysis shows that, throughout U.S. history, reproductive regulation has served a social agenda that especially disadvantages women of color."
—Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

"We must all be grateful to Rickie Solinger for another of her pithy, compelling interpretive histories. Pregnancy and Power offers a thoughtful, lucid overview of reproductive issues throughout U.S. history—an extremely valuable contribution that should be widely read."
—Linda Gordon, author of The Moral Property of Women: Birth Control Politics in America

"Solinger shows how the past is truly prologue as she connects contemporary political struggles over pregnancy and pregnancy limitation to racism and colonialism in the United States"
—Loretta J. Ross, co-author, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice

"Pregnancy and Power embraces far more than the usual perspective."
—MBR: California Bookwatch

[R]eading Rickie SolingerÂ's Pregnancy and Power felt in some ways like taking a medicinal tonic. She provides a vision of what a society dedicated to reproductive justice could be... [ Pregnancy and Power] made me think— and for that, I like this book immensely.
—The WomenÂ's Review of Books

A sweeping chronicle of women's battles for reproductive freedom throughout American history, Pregnancy and Power explores the many forces—social, racial, economic, and political—that have shaped women's reproductive lives in the United States.

Leading historian Rickie Solinger argues that a woman's control over her body involves much more than the right to choose an abortion. Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, when the U.S. government took Indian children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressed Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Tracing the diverse plot lines of women's reproductive lives throughout American history, Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time.

Solinger asks which women have how many children under what circumstances, and shows how reproductive experiences have been encouraged or coerced, rewarded or punished, honored or exploited over the last 250 years. Viewed in this way, the debate over reproductive rights raises questions about access to sex education and prenatal care, about housing laws, about access to citizenship, and about which women lose children to adoption and foster care.

Pregnancy and Power shows that a complete understanding of reproductive politics must take into account the many players shaping public policy-lawmakers, educators, employers, clergy, physicians-as well as the consequences for women who obey and resist these policies. Tracing the diverse plotlines of women's reproductive lives throughout American history, Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the struggle to control sex and pregnancy in America.

Customer Reviews:

Women's struggles: beyond the right to abortion.......2006-03-19

For a single-volume, in-depth history of women's struggles for reproductive freedom through out American history, college-level and many a public library holding will want to look at PREGNANCY AND POWER: A SHORT HISTORY OF REPRODUCTIVE POLITICS IN AMERICA. Historian Rickie Solinger argues that women's struggles go beyond the right for abortion: reproductive politics surfaced when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, the US government took Indian kids from families, and when doctors encouraged Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s: thus PREGNANCY AND POWER embraces far more than the usual perspective.

An important, well written book.......2005-11-08

Pregnancy and Power is an eye-opening exploration of reproductive politics and should be read by anyone who cares about the social injustices women are subjected to in this regard.

Amazon.com

"This book will try to change the way you think about American history," writes Ted Steinberg in the opening line of Down to Earth. That's an ambitious claim, but not far off the mark. His fascinating book is essentially an environmental history of the United States, with the author paying particular attention to how elements of nature became commodities and thereby isolated Americans from the natural world. Readers don't have to subscribe to this neo-Marxist concept in order to appreciate Steinberg's observations about everything from the old-time urban problem of horse excrement ("the nineteenth-century equivalent of auto pollution") to the massive amounts of garbage produced by fast-food chains (McDonald's, he says, requires "an area equivalent in size to more than 450,000 football fields" to supply its paper needs). He also tells what may be the first-ever natural history of the Civil War. This may sound idiosyncratic, and to some extent it is, yet Steinberg weaves it all together and makes the underappreciated point that "it is quite simply wrong to view the natural world as an unchanging backdrop to the past." It changes all the time, he writes, and it has shaped Americans in ways that few of them understand. --John Miller

Book Description

In this ambitious and provocative text, environmental historian Ted Steinberg offers a sweeping history of our nation--a history that, for the first time, places the environment at the very center of our story. Written with exceptional clarity, Down to Earth re-envisions the story of America "from the ground up." It reveals how focusing on plants, animals, climate, and other ecological factors can radically change the way that we think about the past. Examining such familiar topics as colonization, the industrial revolution, slavery, the Civil War, and the emergence of modern-day consumer culture, Steinberg recounts how the natural world influenced the course of human history. From the colonists' attempts to impose order on the land to modern efforts to sell the wilderness as a consumer good, the author reminds readers that many critical episodes in our history were, in fact, environmental events. He highlights the ways in which we have attempted to reshape and control nature, from Thomas Jefferson's surveying plan, which divided the national landscape into a grid, to the transformation of animals, crops, and even water into commodities. The text is ideal for courses in environmental history, environmental studies, urban studies, economic history, and American history. Passionately argued and thought-provoking, Down to Earth retells our nation's history with nature in the foreground--a perspective that will challenge our view of everything from Jamestown to Disney World.

Customer Reviews:

Important Topic; Trivial Treatment.......2005-05-24

In Down to Earth, environmental historian Ted Steinberg struggles to establish nature as a profound force in the general narrative of American history. The book is rife with interesting facts and fascinating events, but unfortunately it does not consistently build upon the notion that the American past has been shaped by man's interaction with the environment. Steinberg offers some anecdotal evidence early in the text, but he seems to lose track of the book's purpose after the first few chapters. The last half of Down to Earth, in particular, leaves the reader wondering if there existed any sort of positive man/nature interaction after World War Two. Still, several far more troubling problems emerge from the book.
Too often Steinberg's assumptions pass for evidence, and the author frequently reveals his own ideological biases. Down to Earth also neglects many major themes in environmental history, and seminal works by George Perkins Marsh, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Leo Marx do not even show up in the bibliography.
Down to Earth offers a good deal of trivia, and some breezy reading, but in order to really understand environmental history, erudite individuals should turn to works by William Cronon, Richard White, Donald Worster, and Martin Melosi.

Well written, fresh info, but shaky stats and rhetoric .......2004-07-29

(3 1/2 stars would be more accurate)
Ted Steinberg is Professor of History and Law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His work in the field of environmental history has attracted attention to his name as a leader in the new generation of environmental historians. His work Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History is his assessment of the natural and human forces that have shaped the United States. This book was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in History.

Part one (chapters 1-3) entitled Chaos to Simplicity chronicles early forces of nature from the breakup of Pangea to the first native settlers of North America and the settlement of the first Europeans. In it, Steinberg discusses overkill and the depletion of the large mammals of North America. He covers themes of disease, animal domestication (and introduction, as with the horse), and early Malthusian forces in New England. This may seem redundant to readers of environmental history, but Steinberg packaged Down to Earth as a textbook so that a general understanding of American environmental history can be understood. In later chapters, Steinberg gives innovative analysis to topics such as how the rise of commodities affected New England, the climate of the South promoted slavery and poor land use, and how agricultural discoveries (particularly that of California) drastically changed life on the Eastern coast.

Steinberg hits his stride in Part III (Consuming Nature) as he described how the evolution of these natural and environmental changes converged to give way to an unprecedented environmental monster we have today. Steinberg points to cultural forces embodied in consumerism and modern conveniences as the culprit that puts distance between the individual and the environmental impact they produce. Of particular interest is his account of America's switch from pork to beef as the predominant meat of choice in chapter 12. His analysis of the origins of the modern environmental movement (chapter 15) and the issues of corporate conspiracy the automobile, and lack of mass transit options (chapter 13) are also rather informative.

The themes of the book steady the line between pure history and editorial commentary. Many of Steinberg's persuasions, as evidenced through his constant reference to laborers and "non-union" areas, make his book read like a political science text. It is true that bias is unavoidable in any work, but the professional historian must make pains to realize the holistic sway of his document. To his credit, Steinberg often makes rebuttals in the opposing side of the argument when his analysis gets personal, as in the case of Ronald Reagan (p. 258) and other politicians.

Dr. Steinberg's writing approach invites the reader to enjoy his book on the literary level as well as the historical. At times, especially in the latter chapters, he asserts an irritating habit of quoting out-of-date statistics where more current ones are surely readily available. More research into his bibliography could tell whether this weakness shows itself as lackadaisical research on one hand, or the choosing of the more compelling statistics to make his case on the other.

I had to read this for a class--it was great!.......2004-05-24

I had to read this book for my Enviornmental History class, and it was totally interesting. I was far less interested in the other book we had to read for the same class.

I had no trouble reading the assigned chapters, and often kept reading past the assigned pages. Steinberg has an interesting 'take' on history. My favorite chapter was #10, Death of the Organic City, which was about the role of human "waste" in the cities in the ecology of outlier farming, and how the advent of piped sewage insured (unintentional) pollution of rivers & other waterways. At the time, it was believed that running water cleaned up filth-- which it would have, in smaller amounts.

I had never considered that the clean-up of human waste in the cities had a downside. As well, the role of pigs as waste recyclers was intriquing and illuminating, as well as being the mainstay of most poor families.

Steinbergers version of the Civil War was also very intriquing. According to Steinberg, the South would have won the war but for nature's vagaries.

My review is lame compared to the book, but I do highly recommend it.

a real environmental history.......2003-08-19

Since environmental history staked its claim to status as an independent subfield of history, environmental historians have clamored for the acknowledgment of the rest of the profession. While many environmental historians have won awards and been honored by the profession at large, injecting the substance of the discipline into mainstream historical scholarship and teaching has been a harder task. The field has come a long way since Donald Worster was asked by his graduate school mates how he would present history from the bear's point of view, but it has long been too easy to consign environmental history to the ghetto of disciplinary subfields. American historians have embraced the idea that the U.S. was and saw itself as "nature's nation," but explored that idea no farther. For the longest time, no one truly attempted to understand what that particular relationship meant in the nation's history.

Some of the blame for this circumstance falls on the discipline. For the better part of a generation, synthesis was beyond the reach of environmental history. The field produced brilliant monographs, but little that appealed beyond the boundaries of a growing field to main vein of American history, wrapped up as it was and is in the topics of race, class, and gender. Only in recent years have a series of syntheses been published, paving the way for the next step, the integration of environmental history into mainstream history.

Ted Steinberg Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History is a bold attempt to jump that gap. One of the first people to be trained in environmental history by an established environmental historian, Steinberg produced three major works before undertaking this volume. Here he makes the case for treating the American environment as an actor on the stage of national history. He argues that the commodification of nature became the catalytic factor in the transformation of the physical nature of the North American continent. "The benefits of modern, from fast food to flush toilets, for all their virtues," he writes, "have come at the price of ecological amnesia" (xii).

Steinberg retells American history through this lens with varying degrees of success. The book is bold and in places wise; simultaneously and despite Steinberg's attempt to create distance from declensionism, he is closely tied to the idea in Marxian terms. His characteristic incisive insights are tempered by the need to cover vast swaths of the past in narrative style, creating something that is simultaneously a textbook and a far more sophisticated argument about the role of nature in history. The complexity of the topic and the need for broad coverage imperil the reader, for the larger argument, that the nature of American nature mattered in the history of the continent, gets lost in the telling and retelling of American history. While the reader is offered Thomas Midgely, the chemist who put lead back into gasoline to eliminate engine knock early in the twentieth century, and Norman Borlaug, the progenitor of the Green Revolution, it feels like the kinds of stunts textbook writers use to invigorate the past for students, not the dawning of a new appreciation for the role of the physical environment in the human past. Despite the brilliance of the work and the marvelous grasp Steinberg displays, he can't quite bring the role of environment as a driving force to the fore.

Down to Earth is marvelous step toward the synthesis that will command the attention of the discipline, but it falls just short of reaching Steinberg's goal of giving environment a place in American history. The best synthesis to yet appear, Down to Earth opens the way for the final integration of environmental history into mainstream American history.

Every one should read.......2003-02-22

A thoroughly engaging review of American history from the forming of the continent to the current day-- with an important difference. Originally conceived to be a textbook, this is a wonderful presentation of the significant role our natural resources and other environmental factors have played in the development of the U.S. I find Steinberg to be a skillful and diplomatic writer: he rightfully highlights the blessings and curses of the natural environment (and our obligation as stewards) without minimizing or displacing other influences.

Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History

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Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History
Ted Steinberg
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKJ8CC

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