| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 191 words from this article are provided below; about 551 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Brian Donahue. The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. (Yale Agrarian Studies.) New Haven: Yale University Press. 2004. Pp. xix, 311. $35.00.

The sculptor Daniel Chester French famously memorialized the Minuteman of Concord, Massachusetts, as a proud yeoman with musket and plow, equally ready to lay down a furrow or an invading British Regular. Brian Donahue's environmental history of colonial agriculture in the town that fired "the shot heard 'round the world" suggests a very different image. Instead of the plow, the yeoman should be holding a scythe and a rake to gather in the abundant crop of meadow hay that flourished on the banks of what the Indians called Musketaquid, "Grass-ground River," and that sustained the conduct of English husbandry under the unprecedented circumstances of the New World. As for the musket, it served to defend a way of life that persisted with remarkable resiliency down to 1775, despite growing pressures of population on land. Having created a mode of life closely attuned to the local environment, the inhabitants of Concord meant to keep it that way.

. . .

There are about 551 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.