The only compact yet comprehensive survey of environmental and cultural forces that have shaped the visual character and geographical diversity of the settled American landscape. The book examines the large-scale historical influences that have molded the varied human adaptation of the continent’s physical topography to its needs over more than 500 years. It presents a synoptic view of myriad historical processes working together or in conflict, and illustrates them through their survival in or disappearance from the everyday landscapes of today.
The Making of the American Landscape (ed. by Michael P. Conzen) — 2nd Edition — TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chap. 1 Nature’s bequest
Stanley W. Trimble, University of California at Los Angeles
Chap. 2 Indian settlement landscapes
Karl W. Butzer, University of Texas at AustinChap. 3 Hispanic landscape traditions
David Hornbeck, California State University at Northridge
Chap. 4 The French imprint on North America
Cole Harris, University of British ColumbiaChap.
Chap. 5 Americanizing English landscape habits
Peirce F. Lewis, The Pennsylvania State UniversityChap. 6 The plantation regime
Charles S. Aiken, University of TennesseeChap. 7 Gridding a national landscape
Hildegard B. Johnson, Macalester College
Chap. 8 Clearing the forests
Michael Williams, University of Oxford
Chap. 9 Remaking the prairies
John C. Hudson, Northwestern University
Chap. 10 Watering the deserts
James L. Wescoat, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chap. 11 Designing American utopias
Bret Wallach, University of OklahomaChap. 12 Inscribing ethnicity on the land
Susan W. Hardwick, University of Oregon
Chap. 13 Organizing religious landscapes
Wilbur Zelinsky, The Pennsylvania State UniversityChap. 14 Mechanizing the American earth
David R. Meyer, Brown University
Chap. 15 Building American cityscapes
Edward K. Muller, University of Pittsburgh
Chap. 16 Asserting central authority
Wilbur Zelinsky, The Pennsylvania State UniversityChap. 17 Creating landscapes of civil society
Joseph S. Wood, University of Southern Maine
Chap. 18 Imposing landscapes of private power and wealth
William K. Wyckoff, Montana State University
Chap. 19 Paving America for the automobile
John A. Jakle, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chap. 20 Developing corporate consumption venues
Michael P. Conzen, The University of Chicago
Biography
Michael Conzen is Professor of Geography at the University of Chicago
'Michael Conzen has re-assembled a superb line up of authors renowned for their capacity to see detail and interpret the big picture. Chapters have been updated, especially through an expanded array of historical and contemporary views of landscapes, and several new authors make this an even more compelling text." – Deryck Holdsworth, Pennsylvania State University
"Since its publication in 1990, The Making of the American Landscape has remained the best single-volume introduction to the country's cultural landscape mosaic." –Chris Wilson, University of New Mexico, USA
"The Making of the American Landscape is, simply stated, an amazing book. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the evolution of landscape. It is also a fine text to be used in classes which focus on historical geography or landscape studies more broadly....There is not a single chapter that this reviewer found disappointing or uninteresting." – Dawn S. Bowen, Department of Geography, University of Mary Washington