Carolyn Merchant. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. xviii + 448 pp. $52.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-11232-1; $24.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-231-11233-8.

Reviewed by Arn M. Keeling (Department of History and Philosophy, Montana State University)
Published on H-HistGeog (June, 2006)

Recent decades have seen the proliferation of thematic "guides," "handbooks," "atlases" and "encyclopedias" for the textbook and reference market. This trend is especially noticeable in human geography, where each sub-field boasts several such volumes, typically multi-authored, jockeying to define the subject for undergraduates and researchers alike. Whether this represents a maturation of the discipline or merely of the academic book market remains debatable. The same trend is detectable in the profusion of new varieties of toothbrushes and dog foods, but it is unclear whether people's teeth are really any cleaner or their dogs better fed.

The deluge of guides and textbooks has not spared the field of environmental history, especially the American variety. Recent examples include: the Encyclopedia of Conservation and Environmentalism (1995); the Atlas of U.S. and Canadian Environmental History (2003); the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History (2004); Blackwell's American Environmental History reader (2003); and Carolyn Merchant's Columbia Guide to American Environmental History (2002), now available in paperback. The appearance of these resources can and has been described as a sign of environmental history's coming of age. If so, then Carolyn Merchant's involvement in both the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History and the Columbia Guide are appropriate testaments to her pioneering role in establishing and defining this burgeoning, boundary-crossing field of study. Merchant produced the Columbia Guide as a "first stop" reference for students of environmental history, providing both a historiographical and thematic overview of the field as well as a resource and reading guide. Thus, it is a kind of hybrid between a "critical reader" and straight reference work. However, the guide only imperfectly combines these elements, due to shortcomings in both organization and content.

Organizationally, the guide suffers from a lack of integration and coherence. The first section offers a narrative overview of key themes and events in American environmental history, running to just under two hundred pages. Various resource and reference sections follow thereafter: an "A to Z" of environmental history keywords; an environmental history "timeline"; and a resource guide, bibliography and index. These components, individually useful and interesting, are poorly integrated. For instance, the terms listed in the "A to Z" are not highlighted or cross-referenced in the narrative or in other sections. Oddly, unlike the definitions for individuals and agencies in this section, many of the concepts like "conservation" and "bioregion" are not treated historically, but provide rather terse and simplistic definitions. The purpose of the timeline remains unclear, since it appears to simply summarize the key elements of the narrative, with a few random additions. A better approach to this format would have been to provide some context for the dates and events listed, using a three-columned timeline of environmental history, political events, and key social, cultural and economic developments. The bibliographical essay, intended to provide further reading for the narrative section, is awkwardly separated from it by over one hundred pages. Nevertheless, the essay, and accompanying subject-based bibliography and index, are excellent resources and provide a useful snapshot of the key literature in the field.

The historical overview itself is an inevitably selective yet admirable attempt to introduce readers to the problems and issues that have preoccupied environmental historians. Though chronologically and thematically organized, it is less a synthesis or analysis of American environmental history than a kind of extended introductory essay. At times, it reads a bit like a series of somewhat dry undergraduate lectures, reflecting, perhaps, the intended audience of environmental history neophytes. While the use of short, serial examples to illustrate key themes provides a sense of the breadth of environmental history concerns, it leaves the reader yearning for a more in-depth analysis of these topics, on the one hand, and craving a sense of the bigger picture, on the other. For instance, the opening chapter on "Native-European Encounters" relies on several regional case studies of contact episodes, which make it difficult to see the larger pattern of environmental change during the contact and colonial phases in North America. The tight thematic focus means that the narrative often lacks historical-geographical context, whether of European colonialism or the social, economic and political dimensions of environmental change.

In spite of the longstanding mutual interests and activities of historical geographers and environmental historians, geographical perspectives are unevenly deployed in Merchant's book. Certainly, important historical-geographical themes are present, from landscape change to imperialism to the influence of culture on the perception and use of nature. Historical geographers such as Carville Earle and Craig Colten make appearances in the text and in references. However, there is little evidence of a spatial sensibility in the text, nor any significant exploration of the spatial economies and ecologies created by humans in America, so expertly highlighted by William Cronon in Nature's Metropolis (1991). This absence is compounded by the lack of maps and images, two important tools of historical geographers (and students) for understanding the spatial aspects of colonization, landscape change and human attitudes towards nature. Even the long discussion of the Hudson River School of painters in chapter 4 remains unillustrated.

For historical geographers, even those teaching or engaging with environmental history, the Columbia Guide will probably serve as a supplementary resource rather than a basic text. Its organizational shortcomings are an important reason for this: more effort should have been made to incorporate and reference the definitions and timeline with the narrative to provide a more textured and interactive resource. Merchant's narrative overview, while a timely and stimulating effort, lacks a kind of overarching focus or argument to stimulate advanced students or researchers. Such shortcomings are symptomatic of the guide/handbook genre, and The Columbia Guide displays them no more than most.

Still, there is much here to provoke reflection and discussion among students and practitioners alike. Overall, the guide highlights how environmental historians have used their insights to reinterpret major aspects and events in U.S. history, including colonization, slavery, frontier expansion and settlement; landscape transformation, urbanization, and industrialization. For the student encountering environmental history for the first time, Merchant provides a valuable introduction to the topics and perspectives that characterize the discipline. The bibliography and resource guide are a suitable launch pad for research projects in the field. For teachers, the guide offers a useful resource for lecture preparation and for a quick orientation to unfamiliar topics in American environmental history. The substantial list of visual and electronic resources is a valuable starting point for curriculum design and lesson planning. A similar undertaking for continental or even world environmental history, while no doubt provoking controversy and debate, would be welcome.

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Citation: Arn M. Keeling. Review of Merchant, Carolyn, The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. H-HistGeog, H-Net Reviews. June, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11854

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