the eternal frontier: an ecological history of north america and it's people

the eternal frontier: an ecological history of north america and it

By 1999, nearly 1,200 native North American species had been placed on the official endangered list. They had won a great victory in the war and had created one of the most affluent and self-contented societies, yet still the pillage of their natural resources was not finished. By the 1950s, North Americans had destroyed about four-fifths of the continent's wildlife, cut more than half its timber, all but destroyed its native cultures, dammed most of its rivers, obliterated its most productive freshwater fisheries and depleted a good proportion of its soils. In a biological sense, the over-exploitation of the frontier was akin to going out in a blaze of glory. 'North America's economic pre-eminence has come about because the resources of a rich yet middle-sized continent have been mined to provide a capital base that is the envy of the world. Here is Flannery in a recent THES article: This superb book tells the story of North America over the last 65 million years, from the arrival of the largest asteroid ever to hit the earth, through the evolution of North America's landscape, mountains, forests, prairies, volcanoes and rivers, its climate and its flora and fauna, from the Burgess Shale through to the arrival of homo sapiens, the story of the Native Americans and the impact of the arrival of European invaders and their legacy.Īt once an admirable chronicle of North America's often surprising ecological past (how many of us know that the camel originated here? Or that the grizzly bear is actually a Eurasian import?) it is also a dark history of the colossal destruction of biodiversity over the last two hundred years. Originally published in 2001, now available again in paperback.

The eternal frontier: an ecological history of north america and it's people