"Yankee wealth is the creation of human hands, not of nature"--so writes Muir
(The Glorious Fourth) in this admirable environmental and economic history,
which follows the six New England states from Native Americans' neolithic
agriculture through the 19th-century factory boom to its destructive
aftermath. When proto-Pequots switched from hunting to agriculture, their
"cornfields... nourished the population" with remarkably "little effect on the
ecosystem." Europeans introduced change for the worse. Increasing in numbers
and in population density, 18th-century whites replaced fields with orchards,
beer with hard cider, but nevertheless wore out their land in "destructive
husbandry." With its depleted soil and few mineral resources, Massachusetts
and the states around it would have been destined for poverty, but New
England's industrial revolution intervened. Muir shows how local culture and
international trade combined to make the space from New Haven to New Hampshire
the headquarters of mid-l9th-century manufacturers. Demand for water power
replaced a network of streams with a wall of dams. Sewage (along with duck
farm runoff) devastated the oyster beds that once made the shellfish abundant
and cheap. Though some species have made a comeback today, New England
tomorrow promises more ecoproblems: the Maine woods are still being logged
unsustainably, and too many people drive too many cars. Mountains of research
power this book, while Muir's direct yet conversational tone distinguishes it:
the titular pond, hard by Muir's house in Newton, Mass., gives the book's
lyrical bits a visual center, while her politics tint its prose a shade of
green. Serious students of New England's original peoples, watersheds and
forests, of its farms, suburbs and cities, or of its near future will seek out
Muir's volume.  (May)

This article appeared on Page 77 of the April 24, 2000 issue of Publishers Weekly.