Preface: What is Judd trying to do in this book? What is the significance of the title, Second Nature?
Introduction. Why does it make sense to consider the
environmental history of the region of New England? How does Judd's use of the
concept of "second nature" try to balance the influence of nature on people
("environmental determinism") with the influence of people on nature?
Notes: "Second nature" is nature under
human influence, contrasting with "first nature," which is purely wild.
"Longue durée" is a term from the French Annales School of historical
writing that focuses on long-term historical trends rather than individual
events.
1. How did landscape and ecology change over time after the end of the Ice Age? How did human lifestyle change as land and resources changed over time? How did Indians modify the landscape?
2. Describe the New England environment during the Age of Exploration. How did explorers understand the land? How did disease, the fur trade, war, and colonization affect Indians? How did some Indians manage to survive and stay in New England?
3. Describe colonial settlement patterns. Which places attracted settlement along the coast and then in the interior? How were local land and resources divided among townspeople? Why did people settle in frontier areas and how did settlement differ there? Explain farm ecology and farmers' commercial concerns. How did environment shape the people?
4. What does Judd mean by "industrializing the margins"?
What were the natural bounties of New England? How did New Englanders exploit
them, and with what environmental impact? What was the impact of technological
advance? How was town life disrupted? How did some successfully adapt to
changing conditions? How did deforestation affect New England?
Note: The terms "eotechnic" (dawn
technology), "paleotechnic" (old technology), and "neotechnic" (new technology)
are taken from Lewis Mumford's influential book Technics and Civilization.
They refer to medieval technology, the coal-powered technology of
smokestack industry, and the electric-powered technology of today, respectively.
5. How did industrialization affect New England farmers and their way of life? What environmental and human factors encouraged the rise of factories in the region? Identify Samuel Slater and his significance and identify the Waltham-Lowell system and its significance. Explain how industrialization affected farmers and led to out-migration. What industries flourished in New England over time, and how did they adapt to competition and changing markets?
6. Define the terms "Romanticism," "sublime," "Hudson River School," and "Transcendentalism." Be able to identify and describe the significance of Timothy Dwight, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, Thomas Cole, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. What was Thoreau's attitude towards wilderness?
7. How did the four principles of New England conservation--science, sustainable management, equity, and multiple use--play out in inland fisheries? In coastal fisheries? In clamming and lobster fishery? In agriculture? In forestry? In ocean fisheries? Describe the role of communities in successful conservation. What accounts for the failure of ocean fisheries in particular?
8. How did natural features affect the siting of cities? How
did the need for clean water lead to "water imperialism" and how did it affect
bodies of water away from cities? Describe the success of the fight for clean
water. Describe the rise of suburbs and parks. Why does Judd describe the
boundary between city and country as "blurred"? Describe New England's
industrial transition from factories to technology and its environmental
effects. How did New England's cities deal with these changes and what was the
role of urban environmentalism?
Note: "Brutalism" is a style of
architecture that emphasizes poured concrete and geometric lines. It was
especially popular from the 1950s to the 1970s in government, educational, and
institutional architecture.
9. What was regionalism and how did it provide a foundation for New England environmentalism? In what three ways was New England environmentalism distinctive? Describe New England's national leadership in river and coastal environmentalism as well as farmland preservation. Why was preservation of parkland so complicated? What did protecting "wilderness" mean in such a long-settled and long-worked landscape? Judd's book ends on a much more optimistic note than Kirby's did. What factors can you think of that explain the differences between New England and the South in terms of the success and impacts of environmentalism?