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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The image is gripping: a handsome American Indian with a sad, tear-filled eye offers the simple message, "Pollution: It's a Crying Shame." This 1970s anti-pollution advertisement, which reached millions of people, helped entrench the notion that Indians treated the land kindly and white invaders spoiled it. Not so, says anthropologist Krech, in this compelling, if somewhat incomplete, examination of the historical truths and romantic myths about Native Americans and their relationship with nature. Acknowledging that Indians clearly possessed vast knowledge of their environment, Krech contends that this knowledge was often merged with a religious cosmogony that left little room for conservation as it is understood today. Indians may have treated the individual animals upon which they preyed with great respect in order to avoid offending their spirits, but this view did not prevent occasional overhunting or depletion of resources, according to Krech. If the New World seemed like a rich Eden to European immigrants, Krech contends it was because the populations of Native Americans were too small to have made much of a difference in their environments before they were overtaken by the newcomers' resource-based economy. To prove his points, Krech closely examines the role Native Americans played in a variety of environmental histories, from Pleistocene extinctions to the demise of the buffalo. Yet he overlooks what was one of the greatest single animal-based economies of precontact times, the vast subsistence salmon fisheries of western North America. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A popular question of debate has centered on the Native American relationship to the environment. Were they the first environmentalists, conservationists who neither wasted nor altered their natural resources? Krech (anthropology, Brown Univ.) addresses this cherished American myth by reviewing archaeological, oral, and written records and applying them to a few specific cases. The Native Americans, like all peoples, altered their environments, responded to climatic changes, adjusted to times of feast and famine, and adapted to the new economic forces introduced by Europeans. They were not Noble Savages, nor was North America the Eden that Europeans recorded. Europeans saw what they wanted to see, neglecting the native histories, cultures, and religions that would have helped them gain an accurate representation of this "new land." Krech asks questions to spark new debate on the image of the "ecological Indian." A thought-provoking book; recommended for all libraries.APatricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley Coll., Mt. Carmel, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
The image is gripping: a handsome American Indian with a sad, tear-filled eye offers the simple message, "Pollution: It's a Crying Shame." This 1970s anti-pollution advertisement, which reached millions of people, helped entrench the notion that Indians treated the land kindly and white invaders spoiled it. Not so, says anthropologist Krech, in this compelling, if somewhat incomplete, examination of the historical truths and romantic myths about Native Americans and their relationship with nature. Acknowledging that Indians clearly possessed vast knowledge of their environment, Krech contends that this knowledge was often merged with a religious cosmogony that left little room for conservation as it is understood today. Indians may have treated the individual animals upon which they preyed with great respect in order to avoid offending their spirits, but this view did not prevent occasional overhunting or depletion of resources, according to Krech. If the New World seemed like a rich Eden to European immigrants, Krech contends it was because the populations of Native Americans were too small to have made much of a difference in their environments before they were overtaken by the newcomers' resource-based economy. To prove his points, Krech closely examines the role Native Americans played in a variety of environmental histories, from Pleistocene extinctions to the demise of the buffalo. Yet he overlooks what was one of the greatest single animal-based economies of precontact times, the vast subsistence salmon fisheries of western North America. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A popular question of debate has centered on the Native American relationship to the environment. Were they the first environmentalists, conservationists who neither wasted nor altered their natural resources? Krech (anthropology, Brown Univ.) addresses this cherished American myth by reviewing archaeological, oral, and written records and applying them to a few specific cases. The Native Americans, like all peoples, altered their environments, responded to climatic changes, adjusted to times of feast and famine, and adapted to the new economic forces introduced by Europeans. They were not Noble Savages, nor was North America the Eden that Europeans recorded. Europeans saw what they wanted to see, neglecting the native histories, cultures, and religions that would have helped them gain an accurate representation of this "new land." Krech asks questions to spark new debate on the image of the "ecological Indian." A thought-provoking book; recommended for all libraries.APatricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley Coll., Mt. Carmel, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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