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Summary: Monumental Work - genealogy of family, environment, economy
Review: This book's lyrical prose is a melody that will both carry you through a first reading - and reappear in your mind as snippets to savor. At the same time, it is a dense, provocative reference volume filled with specific items of interest for a wide array of disciplines. The main thread of the material is as the subtitle describes - "Economy and Ecosystem in New England", but the writer's craft provides us with a great sense of the entire human tapestry that patterns and threads the fabric as it unfurls in the "long view" of history. This universal melody conveys a process and analogies that could be applied for any time or place. It should be a model for every zealous environmentalist - make the message personally relevent, well-researched and invite the reader to contribute to the solution. I am only a "conscientious" environmentalist in that I take on chores that I believe are my responsiblity. I am, on the other hand, quite zealous as a family history researcher with a particular interest in migration patterns - already tuned into the resources that can be found in archaeological, science and social history research areas. Still, it never occurred to me that "It's the environment - stupid" is the pre-eminent theme in any age or any political/socio-economic environment. At least not in the fundemental sense that Diana Muir has conveyed. Aside from the landmark work that this universal econosystem theme represents, it is about family - how we perceive the world around us - that will convey what is most personally relevant. Ms. Muir has played out in New England, or particularly Bullough's Pond, the serious context of history in relation to decisions that we must make today, as well as radiating rings of specific genealogical information and insight that should place this book on the wish list of any family history researcher who has gotten back beyond the most recent century and finds themselves looking for a missing link in an unknown locale. This book will provide clues for many generations to come. Read about the buck-toothed beaver in the accompanying book excerpt for insight into the ecosystem issues of "natural" unbalances versus human extremes. Each of such chapters in the full book provide both breadth in the economic motivations of communities, as well as depth in the many extensive vignettes about key players, locations and economic issues. Salt, water, ports, cobblers, peddlars, machines, land, spinners, steam, timber, fishing and any number of other basic issues take on understandable and surprisingly obvious themes of importance.
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Summary: really nice
Review: This is a REALLY nice example of the possibilities that exist when an author weaves together multiple strands of thought in a comprehensive view of a topic or region. Here Muir examines the New England landscape from the perspectives of ecology, economics and history and makes each topic come alive as it is informed by the others. The prose is excellent and the pace and choice of examples kept me intrigued to the end. As someone who spends a good deal of time teaching about the topics that Muir focuses on I tend to be a sceptical consumer but here I found myself constantly nodding "yes!" or exclaiming "Aha! NOW I understand why THAT happened". This is a great book for students of Landscape Ecology as well as anyone seriously interested in the history and ecology of New England, and I suspect that even people who have never set foot east of the Mississippi will still benefit greatly from having read it.
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Summary: on reflection, dazzling
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read- period! At the core of the book is Ms. Muir's message that we are part of nature, not separate from or above nature, and we have a great responsibility to maintain the integrity of the environment. Granted, this message is not new. Where this book is very different is how Ms. Muir leads up to this message. She shows how the New England landscape changed from one where farming dominated to one that was a mixture of many different types of mills and factories. You learn the consequences of everything that was done along the way: the consequences to fish and birds of damming rivers; the consequences to forests and to the air we breath of heavy logging; the consequences of catching too many of one type of fish, etc. What is great about this book is that Ms. Muir does not deal in hazy generalities. She takes you step by step and shows you specifically how certain actions cause certain changes in the environment, often unforseen. There is nothing simplistic in her observations and she knows there are no easy answers. She lays out the data for you and you can come to your own conclusions. But what really takes this book to another level is the fascinating biographical information that Ms. Muir provides concerning the many, many New Englanders that invented the machines of the Industrial Revolution and kept the economy vibrant as the importance of agriculture diminished. The way this book is put together is very unusual, due to the combination of all of the above factors and in the space of 248 pages you will learn a great deal of information. The research Ms. Muir must have done in writing this book is staggering and her knowledge across many different areas is amazing. Don't miss reading this book.
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Summary: Economics from the ground up
Review: Throw away the supply and demand curves to observe how an economy gets built from natural resources and human endeavor. Selling ice to the tropics what a great idea. I grew up in Norwood Mass. where the waste of a paper mill, a tannery and ink mill emptied into the Neponset river. My father and his friends who swam there would often emerge covered purple with ink. The author explains why this happened and how these mills contributed to the economy of New England. What impact it had on the swimmers is a guess. Great book.
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Summary: An Intriguing Glimpse at New England¿s History
Review: Using a pond near her home in Newton, MA as a backdrop, Diana Muir weaves a compelling view of New England history, which she argues is a series of ecological crises. From pre-Columbian times, Muir says, New England was populated by individuals struggling on a land that was not conducive to making a living. Radical solutions to unsolvable problems were their only escape. In the 1790s, when farming was the only occupation, a growing population and a soil spent by generations of misuse, resulted in a dearth of farmable land. With no prospects and no future, individuals like Eli Whitney and Thomas Blanchard, were forced to look for creative solutions to society's problems and set in motion an industrial revolution. I was particularly intrigued by the story of Frederick Tudor, the man who in 1806 introduced ice to Martinique. It is one thing to sell ice to people who because of their location, understand the concept. It is quite another, to sell ice to people who have never experienced it, to say nothing about the practical necessities of ice houses to warehouse the product. His father's real estate speculation losses left Tudor with nothing but ambition and a house with a pond in Saugus, MA. He succeeded after two difficult decades. There was always a wrinkle to be solved before a fortune could be built. Iceboxes had to be designed and then marketed in southern ports to people who had to be taught how to preserve it. This phenomenon explains why there so many Crystal and Silver Lakes dot the New England landscape, relics of an enterprising age. Savvy ice dealers understood that attractive names sell products. For a brief period even Muir's Bullough's Pond was briefly renamed Silver Lake. Diana Muir e-mailed me twice during the past two years introducing her book to me. Having read her book, I am grateful for her persistence. If you enjoy reading unique looks at our history, I implore not to wait for her to contact you. Read her book; you will not regret it.
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Summary: Reflections in Bullough's Pond
Review: What is reflected in Bullough's pond? In this gracefully written book, the author tells of the oyster and the carpenter. She combines tales about the pond which stands before her home in Newton, Massachusetts; stories of Yankees selling ice in the tropics; clever inventors designing new methods for making wooden patterns for shoes; the growth of the streetcar suburbs around Boston; and reflections on the fate of oysters. The pond (and New England) is a microcosm of ecological change. In many ways, the books is an elegy about industrious Yankees, born into a hardscrabble environment, whose population exceeded the arable. land. As a result, New Englanders invented, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, altering their environment. Muir celebrates Yankee ingenuity. And even the wildlife, when at its best as in the case of the loon or the beaver, seem to emulate the industriousness of human New Englanders. In short, this is environmental history at its best. There are no heroes and villains; human endeavour is at the heart of the tale; and there is a wonderful mix of detailed naturalist observation and stories about people.
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Summary: Great overview of the history of New England
Review: When I have spare time (and I don't have a lot), I like to read history. So when a friend said she'd enjoyed Reflections in Bullough's Pond, I thought I'd give it a try. I'd say it was the best find of my summer reading season. Beginning before the settlement of New England by Europeans and continuing through the 20th century, the author traces the ways in which New England history has been shaped by the often-conflicting pressures exerted by economics and nature. I learned a tremendous amount about how New England got to be the way it is today, for example how Connecticut came to be a center of gun manufacturing and why we don't harvest many oysters off our coast anymore. I'd say any history buff should enjoy this book (it's really well-written, too), and I might just give it to a couple I know this Christmas. Thanks to the author!
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Summary: Interesting, informative and inferential
Review: Without passing judgement on the author's intent (I'm not a deconstructionist), this work struck me as a powerful indictment of what man has done to his habitat. I should also note that I'm not a greenie, although this work pushed me a step or two in that direction. I found Ms. Muir's book very entertaining. I read it while on vacation, in two sittings. One would correctly infer I also found it a bit disturbing. Ms. Muir has interwoven fact with conjecture to create a probable eco-history of New England since the arrival of man. The conjecture is logically sound and has some evidentiary history. Early Americans, however, wrote no more history than early Africans or early Europeans; hence a degree of conjecture is necessary to flesh out game-theoretically sound propositions. The begining thesis is that the forests of pre-human New England were ecologically sound. This is certainly a reasonable proposition which carries with it implications Ms. Muir details. From that point, Muir creates an eco-history showing how mankind, including the American Indian (or aboriginal American, if you prefer)has destroyed one of the largest air-sheds in the world. Muir discusses the way in which efforts to reforest the area have failed to duplicate natural ecology, and the implications of that failure. The implications have even more profound impact in the contempory Northwest, where I live and where deforestation is not complete, than in the Northeast. Fortunately for the reader, Muir has written much more readably than I have here. She eschews jargon and labyrinthian technical explanations (in contrast with this sentence) to present a clear and convincing case. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
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