| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.1

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England. Edited by David R. Foster and John D. Aber. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. xiv + 477 pp. Illustrations, figures, maps, bibliographic essay, bibliography, list of contributors, index. Cloth $45.00.

This volume is a set of essays reporting the results of the Long Term Ecological Research Program, begun in 1988, centered on the Harvard Forest and central New England more generally. The entire volume is framed by the theme "that understanding history is critical for ecological studies and society as it attempts to address modern environmental issues" (p. ix). These essays succeed admirably in delivering ecological findings in a historical context, in a format friendly to nonscientists (references are, on the whole, found in a bibliographic essay at the end of the book). Given the continuing, often acrimonious, debate regarding wilderness and Native American actions prior to European arrival, this volume also offers the opportunity for a calmer discussion. Since the New England landscape was greatly manipulated by European settlers, no one is arguing that its forests are a pristine natural landscape, and hence there is less at stake for those at either end of the humanized/wilderness landscape continuum. This allows space for discussion and argument that later may be applied to the more contentious western landscape.

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