Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 2:54 pm Post subject: #2: Cronon and Merchant
Please actively read "Using Environmental History" by William Cronon and "Interpreting Environmental History" by Carolyn Merchant (pp.7-12). Also look through the quotes on pp.13-16.
Please post about these readings. You may post about whatever in the readings calls to you, but also please connect or contrast one of the quotes with the readings thus far and explain why and how you draw these ties.
Make sure to do the whole assignment Wednesday night. We will revisit elements of it Thursday night, too.
I have to say that I really liked these readings and found many connections and overlaps between what we read tonight and last night. I found it interesting that Cronon had a similar idea about the environment as Diamond with the sense that our actions have consequences and repercussions. A quote that I liked relating to this is on the top of page 9. It states “…It is best to assume that most human activities have environmental consequences, and that change in natural systems (whether induced by humans or by nature itself) almost inevitably affects human beings.” On a different note, I especially liked the essay by Merchant because it talks about an environmental awareness. I talked about this in last nights post and feel like much of what Merchnt and Worster believe is that awareness is key in understanding and influencing the environment. While climate change and environmental problems are present and something that there is a growing concern (awareness) about, these problems are not only because people drive SUV’s and eat meat. Much of what has occurred in the environment is because of factors like race, sexual orientation, gender, and geological location which are out of our control. I found this fascination how Merchant gave us a history of how these factors I just listed play a roll in the history of our environment. Lastly, I liked the conclusion of Merchant’s “Interpreting Environmental History” because the quote “race, gender, and class are lenses through which to view history and interpret human interactions with the environment,” because many people don’t realize how race, gender, etc affect the environment and planet, but with studying them, you obtain a deeper idea of the environment and how they influence the humans inhabiting it.
Just like Eli, I found many connections between tonight and last night’s reading too. Merchant’s idea about how race, gender, class, etc affect the environment and the history of it is definitely very interesting because just like what Eli said, people don’t usually realize that these have affects on environment as well. Merchant raised the point about how lower class is “closest to the land practice conservation and have developed an intimate environmental awareness” but because the lack of time and education, they don’t get to write down their stories with nature and their suggestions on how we should be more environmentally-friendly, while the middle and upper-class become the leaders and write the history. “In reading environmental history, therefore, it is important to ask who is writing, what they are advocating, and from what class or environmental perspective they are making their argument.” It is true and it happens in everyday life too. Just think about how many times when the legislators are proud of their new legacies on protecting the environment, the affected workers, such as farmers, think the legacies are absolutely unpractical. This is because even though a lot of them are educated, they probably don’t know farming better than a farmer, fishing better than a fisher. Also his point about culture appeals to me too, “People pass on skills and behavioral norms to the next generation of producers, and that allows a culture to reproduce itself over time.” Culture is (at least what I believe it is) what we are taught by the last generation, who inherited from the last generations, and all the way from our ancestors. That’s why a Culture is more attractive and mysterious when it there’s a long history behind it. Also while passing on their skills and what they learnt to the next generation, each generation would add in their own creations, and it is these creations what makes the culture richer.
While I personally didn’t like the readings that much, I agree with Eli that Cronan’s ideas (and particularly the quote Eli picked out) related to what Diamond was saying about how history is a linear thing full of cause and affect. What I didn’t like about Cronan’s essay was all of the disclaiming and needless yapping about his lectures and such. I think that out of all of the four essays we’ve now read, Cronan’s was the least informative and most masked with fancy language that took away meaning from his points.
As for Merchant’s essay though, I definitely see how it could be considered controversial as Rachel said in class, as Merchant was making some pretty bold statements about the credit of American Land. I think it was really interesting to hear the idea that environmentalism can be so closely related to race and gender (things I certainly had never thought about connecting it to before). There were a couple points she made that I was uneasy with though. On page 11 she said “Working class people often often interact most directly with the land in extracting resources for the market.” I agree with this, and it is interesting in relation to the questions she was asking on the previous page (10) about how different cultures have treated their class structures and hierarchies in relation to land--not just in ownership but in direct contact with it. What she said next on page 11 however, about how this makes the working class more exposed to natural disasters I sort of disagreed with, and also think is unrelated to environmental history. Especially with the things she was counting as “natural disasters” (mining accidents, fishery collapses, fluctuations in labor supply?) I think this is just a simple fact, that some working class jobs are obviously more physically enduring and dangerous than say sitting at a desk in a law office, especially in the past.
History beforehand, never truly looked at future implications of past cause and effect. We begin to see a history where as Cronin said, “they want their histories to be useful not just in helping us understand the past, but in helping us change the future...” Additionally, Cronin introduces The idea of cyclical time and natural time, where he views human exploitation of nature (including disenfranchised people) as the foundation for greed and the decline of it's homeostasis. Cronin also stresses that true environmentalism is counter to the ideals of capitalism within society. Additionally, we see A “moral compass”, which becomes more coherent when addressing environmental history through placing absolute environmental facts and places them in cultural contexts.
The usage of parables ties directly back to environmental history’s foundation; returning history back to a more primitive understanding by making connections between human history and ecological change”--in the interest of human (and natural) progress. Through this however, do we see contradictions to Cronin’s point of myth-makings role in history?
Cronin makes the argument that “time’s arrow is the proof of humanity’s self-corrupting instability and disequilibrium.” I found this to be contrary to how Worster saw the relationship between humans and nature, where he would places greater emphasis on the two forces as a synthesized force. He negates to recognize race and gender as factors in environmental history as seen to the past. For the time, Cronin places nature within the framework of “human history.” Environmental Historians study how the those transformations have effected both human’s and nature, as well as the changes that come from those transformations.
Merchant sets greater emphasis on human’s race, gender and economic diversity role in the change of natural world. I got the sense that what is ideal in the American Environment materialized because of the advancements made by colored people, as well as the oppression upon those people that negatively effected the environment they were a part of (which is where we see the decline of both nature and the oppressed). To make connections to an “equilibrium” Cronin put much emphasis on, those people needed the environment (i.e crops grown together to to keep down insect pests, and weeds, economically efficient, community benefit), just as much as nature needed to to care for one another, and make progress. Without having such as racial perspective, we cannot fully understand environmental history. Lastly, Merchant places women’s role in the nurturing of nature critical to the success of the environment (both on a community level, and more long term sustainability; the duality of women and nature manifests into bringing an environmental perspective to the history of science.
My question after tonight’s reading is how and when do we distinguish activism (in terms of the way we see past history, and in talking about future implications) from empirical history, and through that we get truth. At the same time, do we get that perspective if history as Merchant said it, is written by educated elites” rather than “lower-class workers usually too busy by making a living to write their stories or leave literary legacies.” In addition, I’m curious to hear what your take on Merchant’s claims that “nature responded to human interventions, not as a active participant, but as a passive instrument.”...which ties directly to environmental history’s implications to the future.
When I first started reading "Using Environmental History," I found the writing style to be fairly conversational, and didn't contain much useful information. On the right side of page 7, William Cronon ends the paragraph by saying "Perhaps the simplest way to put this is just to ask: what are the uses of environmental history?" This sounded to me like he was asking why it should be studied. Then I thought back to class today, and thought "ETHICAL REMORSE!" The entire text talks about ethical remorse, using minorities as a reference to explain the purpose of environmental studies, and the semantics involved. One of the larger points I drew from this was that nature changes like cultures do, but the rate of change fluctuates.
"Interpreting Environmental History" was similar to Cronon's views in that Carolyn Merchant also compares racial awareness and social structures to environmentalism. It was just less direct and to the point. It reminded me of the text we read by Jared Diamond because it had a lot of elaboration on smaller points that did not directly relate to the thesis.
Naya's having some technical difficulties, so here's her post:
’d agree with Eli for the most part, especially the last quote about how race/class/gender are all lenses in which to interperate human interactions with the environment. That got me thinking about how Rachel was talking the other day in class about considering everything an environment, the four walls of our classroom as much as the wall-less woods, and how the given environment during any human interaction influences racial/gender/class tension or community.
I also made connections between our discussion about the bias of a historian and with a goal-oriented mentality, information is percieved more selectively. “...Environmental historians face in trying to make themselves “useful” to their fellow environmentalists...ironically, environmentalism often commits itself to a fundamentally dualistic visoin even as it appeals for holism.” ( This duality vs. holistic vision draws many ties to our discussion of linear time vs. cyclical. When Cronon goes on to make the distinction between nature being self-healing and humanity being self-corrupting and unstable, I really began to understand why the struggle for unity between the environment and humanity has historically been so difficult, and why some seem to want to retreat into the “utopia” nature theoretically provides where the “human drama” does not. But, he went on to say that as an environmental historian, “Our task...far from trying to escape from history into nature, is to pull nature itself into the stream of human history”, which I found somewhat uplifting. (
I was more interested by the points conveyed in the second reading than those in the first. I was interested by and understood the legitimacy of the idea that years of connection between food, farming & work habits and gender, culture, and race affect today's world. As different foods grow around different areas of the world, groups of people become accustomed to eating these foods, and the food eventually becomes connected to the given group of people. Historically, we have seen that years of eating or growing a crop in a certain area of the world has tied the crop to the people who live there. In some situations, the crop has such potential to boost the economy, civil rights have been disregarded. Slavery and southern "cash crop" farming went hand in hand for years. Gaining money from food mattered more at the time that protecting human lives.
I found the second reading to be the most interesting. In context, it provided me with a sense of how race, class, and gender ultimately affect the environment. When Conron wrote "Our task, after all, far from trying to escape from history into nature, is to pull nature itself into the stream line of history" (pg. I found that he was able to sum up the main idea behind Merchant's findings. Merchant was able to use Native Americans as an example of a group of people who were removed from their land, yet they made significant contributions to agriculture. Merchant also mentioned the fact that laws are used to regulate natural resources, which I found to be disturbing. However, I believe these laws help environmentalist to blend present day issues with those of the past in order to best present history in a way that enables them to make predictions about the world's future.
Joined: 18 Feb 2011 Posts: 27 Location: United States of America
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:52 pm Post subject:
Since I have just finished reading the first one, I will just talk about “Using Environmental History”.
While I was reading Cronon’s writing, I had hard time understand the exact point that he wanted to make. So, I read it over and over again to get a clearer understanding of what he wanted to say. What I got out of his essay was that he believed “most environmental historians aspire to contribute to contemporary environmental politics; they want their histories to be useful not just in helping us understand the past, but in helping us change the future” (p.. What he is saying is that history can be used to help us understand the future, but cannot predict the future- “Rather than make predictions about what will happen, we offer parables about how to interpret what may happen” (p.9).
But, what I do not understand is when he is talking about the cyclical time and linear time. On page 8, Cronon states that “ideal nature is essentially without history as we know it. Another way to put this is to say that natural time is cyclical time, while the time of modern humanity is linear.” First, I do not understand what “ideal nature” is. And, I disagree that ideal nature does not have history. I believe that nature also exists while time is passing by. Wouldn’t that make the nature had history? (or maybe just I interpret this quote wrong…) The second thing that I do not fully understand is the cyclical time and linear time. I do understand that Cronon believes nature lives in equilibrium; therefore he thinks that it has cyclical time. On the other hand, people live in disequilibrium; therefore the time is linear. But, what I don’t understand is what makes nature cyclical time and what make human’s history a linear time?
I haven’t done the former reading, and I don’t really have time to read through the forums posted at this point, so I try my best. In the reading “Using Environmental History” William Cronon describes “natural time is cyclical time, while the time of modern humanity is linear”(p. “Humanity’s arrow is the fall, while nature’s cycle is salvation” (p.. This is somehow similar to Diamond’s point about linear and circular. And “most human activities have environmental consequences, and that change in natural systems almost inevitably affects human beings.” (p.9) The quotes made me think of the existence of humanity would cause a vicious circle. I completely agree with the points about “the relationship between nature and culture should always be viewed as problem, in comparative dynamics not statics”(p9) because everything is in changing, so you always need comparison.
At last Cronon started “Rather than make predictions about what will happen, we offer parables about how to interrupt what may happen.(p.9)”
In “Interpreting Environmental History” Carolyn merchant told us how to interpret. He says “Environmental historians, like other historians have become increasingly conscious of the place of race, gender, and class interpretation of history”(p.10) and “It is important to ask who is writing, what they are advocating, and from what class or environmental perspective they are making their argument ”(p.11) but there were something I didn’t like about Merchant’s essay, towards the end, he sounds like it’s almost man destroyed the environment, maybe it is true but it’s an eyesore to me. But I think Cronon would agree with William because he said “western science has harmed nature and women in parallel ways.”(p.
"Environmental history... refer[s] to the past contact of man with his total habitat. . . . The environmental historian like the ecologist [s]hould think in terms of wholes, of communities, of interrelationships, and of balances." (p.363 Roderick Nash, "American Environmental History: A New Teaching Frontier")
This quote conveys similar points as the second reading does. Merchant's ideas represent "wholes", as the quote states. In the reading, Merchant discusses nature's affect on humans and human's affect on nature and the conflict that can arise from such interactions. One person cannot represent general human relations with nature, so it is inevitable for an Environmental Historian to look at groups of people. As I mentioned in my last post, acts of oppression in history, such as slavery, have been triggered by agriculture. As crops in the south became worth more money, using slaves became more popular among plantation owners. Indeed, some southerners at the time used slaves for different tasks than farming, but looking at the south as a whole, agriculture and slavery went hand in hand. For an Environmental Historian, it is key to look at groups of people as "wholes" to find their connection or affect on the environment, or the affect of the environment on them.
After looking back at yesterday’s readings, I found a lot of parallels between Merchant’s definition of environmental history and Diamond’s definition of environmental history. In class, we discussed how land affected human progress and the domestication of animals by both the Europeans and Native Americans. When looking at Merchant’s writing, he is able to break down Diamond’s definition of environmental history further by studying gender, race, and class. For example, Diamond states “The broadest pattern of human history-namely, the differences between human societies on different continents- seems to me to be attributable to differences in continental environments” where as Merchant is able to describe the cultural exchange between Europeans, slaves, and Native Americans. In both of these examples, history is being shaped not only by the type of agriculture found in these regions, but by the people who produce these products, their surroundings, and any sort of privilege they may have. When I use the term privilege, it relates to a specific’s group accessibility to resources that will lead to their group’s progress.
On another note I find it interesting that natural time is looked at cyclical while the time of modern humanity is linear. Since oppression is a cycle that sometimes forces the oppressed to become the oppressors it would be interesting to see the parallels between all three of these functions and their role in agriculture.
Joined: 18 Feb 2011 Posts: 27 Location: United States of America
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 5:53 pm Post subject:
“There is little History in the study of nature, and there is little nature in the study of history. I want to show how we can remedy that culture lag by developing a new perspective on the historian’s enterprise.” (p.14)
This quote reflects on a lot of environmental historians. They want to connect both nature and human into a picture. Like Cronon, he stated that “…it is best to assume that most human activities have environmental consequences, and that change in natural systems…almost inevitably affects human beings” (p.9) He believes that nature and human always interact with one and another. And, human is not the “only actors who make history” (p.9). Therefore, he believes that only brings together nature and human, we can see a bigger picture of history; otherwise, we would only see what is going within human’s activities.
The best way to explain how the combination of environment and people can provide a bigger picture of history is to look at Merchant’s reading. In her reading, she explains how the environment can shape the problems between race, gender and class. One example she gives in Interpreting Environmental History was how woman’s role has changed over the time when the economic has transformed into marketing, industrialization…etc. This example clearly shows the interaction between the lands and human, and how has the social structure shifted when the use of land has shifted.
With the quote and the two readings I think the usage of Environmental History is to give us a bigger picture of the history when we study about it. And, I think that is what Historians have been trying to do.
I'd like to expand on yliu2012's point, and agree with her link between social structure shifting when the use of land shifts from Merchant's reading. I really like this concept because it seems to sum up many of the ideas that enviro history pursues that we've covered so far- the awareness of nature as an important player in history and History, the connections between humanity and nature despite their dualities and divergences. I think that's why I liked this quote: "Within the various acts of ecodrama should be included in scene in which men's and women's roles come to center stage and scenes in which Nature 'herself' is an actress." -Carolyn Merchant, pg 15 I'm assuming that there is diversity among the men and women who come to center stage, for considering race and class is important to Merchant. I think it's interesting that Nature is female in Merchant's example, as both women and Nature have been similarly oppressed in the past.
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This duality vs. holistic vision draws many ties to our discussion of linear time vs. cyclical. When Cronon goes on to make the distinction between nature being self-healing and humanity being self-corrupting and unstable, I really began to understand why the struggle for unity between the environment and humanity has historically been so difficult, and why some seem to want to retreat into the “utopia” nature theoretically provides where the “human drama” does not. But, he went on to say that as an environmental historian, “Our task...far from trying to escape from history into nature, is to pull nature itself into the stream of human history”, which I found somewhat uplifting. (
