History

Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape

ebook (PDF via app)

50% off with code SPRING50

Sale Price:
$29.00/拢24.00
Price:
$58.00/拢48.00
ISBN:
Published:
Apr 16, 2013
2002
  • Audio and ebooks (EPUB and PDF) purchased from this site must be accessed on the 快色直播 app. After purchasing, you will receive an email with instructions to access your purchase.
    About audio and ebooks
  • Request Exam Copy

For nearly two centuries, the creation myth for the United States imagined European settlers arriving on the shores of a vast, uncharted wilderness. Over the last two decades, however, a contrary vision has emerged, one which sees the country’s roots not in a state of 鈥減ristine鈥 nature but rather in a 鈥渉uman-modified landscape鈥 over which native peoples exerted vast control.

Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape seeks a middle ground between those conflicting paradigms, offering a critical, research-based assessment of the role of Native Americans in modifying the landscapes of pre-European America. Contributors focus on the western United States and look at the question of fire regimes, the single human impact which could have altered the environment at a broad, landscape scale, and which could have been important in almost any part of the West. Each of the seven chapters is written by a different author about a different subregion of the West, evaluating the question of whether the fire regimes extant at the time of European contact were the product of natural factors or whether ignitions by Native Americans fundamentally changed those regimes.

An introductory essay offers context for the regional chapters, and a concluding section compares results from the various regions and highlights patterns both common to the West as a whole and distinctive for various parts of the western states. The final section also relates the findings to policy questions concerning the management of natural areas, particularly on federal lands, and of the 鈥渘aturalness鈥 of the pre-European western landscape.