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Summary: Of Indians, ships, shoes, wood pulp, steam and oysters
Review: Author Diana Muir resides on Bullough's Pond in Newton, Massachusetts, a few miles west of the Boston city center. From this vantage point, she's written REFLECTIONS IN BULLOUGH'S POND, a history of the manner in which the human residents of New England have exploited their environment, first for simple survival, then economic gain, from the time of the paleo-hunters 10,000 years ago to the present.In hardcover, REFLECTIONS is not a particularly thick volume - exclusive of Notes and Index, only 258 pages. However, the print is small and the scope large. There are also a large number of maps, charts, graphs, drawings, and b/w photos to break up the text and give the reader's eyes some variety. The list of topics is the roadmap of the region's economic development, diversification, and spotty decline: the evolution of farming from hunting/gathering, the native Indians' use of forest and fauna, the arrival of the Europeans and the extermination of the area's tribes by disease, Yankee shipbuilding and ocean commerce, land shortages, and the advent of sawmills and shoemaking. Further into the book, one reads about itinerant peddlers, ice exports, the expansion of roads/canals/railroads, machines that make other machines..., the production of charcoal, and the disappearance of indigenous animal species.... Then, as the Industrial Revolution takes firm grip, one learns of cotton mills, steam power, the grinding-up of the forests by the paper mills, the rise and fall (due to water pollution) of oyster harvesting, and the fishing industry, especially King Cod. Finally, Ms. Muir laments the deleterious changes in the ecosystem brought on by acid rain, the increase in greenhouse gasses, and the losses of topsoil andozone. ... Diana has produced a scholarly, excellently researched book that's consistently informative and interesting. (It's also only rarely entertaining in the sense of being fun, so, if that's the requirement, perhaps the latest potboiler from Grisham, King or Cornwell is a better choice of the moment.) As I recall, it was an email from Ms. Muir that brought REFLECTIONS to my attention. She'd read another of my reviews on Amazon, and thought her book might appeal to me. Thank you, Diana, for your leap of faith.
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Summary: New England As Seen Through Bullough's Pond
Review: Diana Muir has written a thoughtful and well-researched book about the history of the eco-systems of New England through the lens of her life and experiences at Bullough's Pond. Lest the reader suppose that this book is related in some way to a famous predecessor also written from the viewpoint of a life by a pond, let me allay those prejudgments right here and now. Walden was a philosophical tract while Diana Muir has penned a rather enjoyable history of the ecology of New England and how it was changed (not necessarily for the better) by each wave of human settlers. She finds the habitat fragile from the start, due to the climate and location. Each wave of human settlers has changed the environment. As the population of the first settlers, American Indians grew past what the land was able to sustain, deforestation and agriculture began as maize and beans became important sources of food. Fishing was also a way of life, particularly oyster harvesting. When settlers arrived from Europe they found land friendly to agriculture, but over-farming and poor land management doomed the thin topsoil. Fishing would later join agriculture on New England's endangered list; even the oyster was soon gone, a victim of overfishing. But Ms. Muir's story is also one of pure Yankee inventiveness. Industry soon took the major role and, helped by waves of immigration from Europe, made New England a major player in America's economy, providing the manufactured goods needed by the North to win the Civil War. And it was New England's ecology that supplied the backbone for the industrial revolution through the use of water power. The price New England paid for that was the polllution of these very power sources, making them unfit for drinking, or life. As the rest of America caught up with New England, new technologies emerged to give her a new foothold in America's economy, but the ecological problems remained the same. Her solutions, as seen from her foothold in Bullough's Pond, are not new, but are based in thoughtful reflection, unlike some other solutions I have seen, and bear reflection. Except for the chapter on the waterways, where she descends into a jeremiad, stating the all-too-obvious, this is a restrained book that lets the facts speak for themselves. Especially delightful, and to the point, is her description of the dredging of the pond by the county due in large part to Winter run-offs. One note of warning: the writing style is such that once you pick it up, you'll find it hard to put down.
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Summary: A beautifully written history of real people
Review: Diana Muir, the author, read one of my Amazon reviews and sent me an E mail suggesting that I might like her book. Well, I have this to say to Ms Muir... "thank you so much! I love it! " This wonderful story of the economic development of New England is written with a pond near Ms Muir's home (Bullough's Pond) as a backdrop. She tastefully weaves her personal experiences into the story she tells of the growth of New England's economy. We learn about the industriousness of the beaver and its effect on the New England ecosystem. We learn of the Native American's effect. Ms Muir traces settlers' early efforts at living off the land and how Yankee ingenuity led to the development of industry when the population grew to the point in which the New England landscape could no longer support farming. She further illustrates how small industries grew large. This book is a celebration of the average person's ability to thrive and adapt. Of course,there are the environmemntal costs which Ms Muir well illustrates. However, she is not judgmental, rather, she records the environmental consequences without ranting against the ingenious people who made New England prosperous. What is particularly wonderful about this book is that the people she writes about are not the famous families of New England but are normal people who carved out their niches. Of course the cream of this group prospered. I love this book and I have sent copies to others as gifts they will certainly enjoy. This book is serious history written with charm and style. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: on reflection, dazzling
Review: I purposely took my time reading this book. It's not a long book; indeed, it's only 258 pages long. But each page was so packed with new things for me to learn, that I wanted time to think about it all. The subtitle is "Economy and Ecosystem in New England", but it is much more than that. It is the result of years of research by Diana Muir, starting with the surroundings of her own home which is located on Bullough's Pond in Newton, Massachusetts and branching out to include all of the New England area. Written in clear, easy-to-understand language, this is the story of a place and how it has changed over the years. It is the story of rocky land and beaver dams and oyster beds. It is the story of Yankee ingenuity and invention. It is the story of making shoes and shipping goods and cutting down trees. I never really thought about these things, but now I could actually understand, right down to the manufacturing details, how interchangeable parts for clocks and firearms changed the nature of commerce. I understand now how paper is manufactured. And how a simple invention of a plug to attach leather soles to shoes affected the economy. Best of all, the book doesn't preach. Even though we can now understand the havoc brought to the environment as the population increased and there was a need for more manufactured goods and a system of plumbing and waste removal, this was all inevitable. Yes, it does show how the lumbering industry destroyed the forests and the manufacturing polluted the waters, but there was also no turning back the clock on the industrial revolution. The book didn't simple raise my consciousness regarding the need to preserve our environment, it showed me how and why in a technical way. Finally, I understand. It is not surprising that this book won an award as the best nonfiction book about Massachusetts by a Massachusetts author. And I expect it will win even more accolades as more and more people discover it. There are maps, there are photos, and there are charts and graphs as well as 36 pages of footnotes and reference sources. And there's something to learn on every page, including some examples of positive changes that have been made as well as hope for the future. I thank Ms. Muir for writing this book and I hope it becomes required reading in schools everywhere. It might be specifically about New England; but its message is universal. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Economies and consequences from the stone age to the present
Review: In her introduction to "Reflections in Bullough's Pond", Diana Muir states that despite the presence of "Ecosystem" in the sub-title, the book is not a jeremiad. And it's not. A bit of a nag, perhaps, but a well-written nag, supported by researched detail. Physically the book is a little bigger than 6 by 9 inches. It runs 312 pages, of which around 40 pages are devoted to notes and about 15 pages to an index. The text is supported by several maps and a few graphs that are clear and easy to read, and several pictures that are a bit murky in reproduction. I enjoyed reading "Reflections in Bullough's Pond. It is a history of the New England area from the arrival of Native Americans (although mostly just before the arrival of English colonists), concentrating not on wars and generals and presidents, but instead telling how ordinary people made a living, why they did what they did, and the consequences of their actions both to themselves and to the ecosystem. The pond in the title serves to tie the events of the past into consequences in the present. Diana Muir writes well. She obviously researched her subject well, but knows the difference between including supportive or even fascinating details and browbeating the reader with them. An example of this is the fate of the beaver. While I vaguely knew before reading the book that beavers were largely exterminated to satisfy a whim of English fashion, I had no idea of the importance of wampum and the destabilization of the Native American culture by diseases imported by the Colonists. Nor did I understand the importance of the beaver in the New England ecosystem. I had few quibbles with the book. While in general it was easily readable, I had a little trouble keeping track of the timeline in the second half. I disagreed with Ms Muir's reasons for population control or it's lack, but since I've been reading a lot of Evolutionary Psychology lately my opinions on that may not be exactly mainstream. In all I found "Reflections in Bullough's Pond" to be a worth reading.
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Summary: Not just for New Englanders
Review: Other reviewers have discussed the virtues of the book, so I will only add that the lessons to be learned from this well written and fascinating study are relevant to the entire planet, not just New England. As such, the book is highly recommended to anyone anywhere who is interested in mankind's relationship to the environment and its effects on culture and economics.
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Summary: See many more reviews
Review: Reviews from newspapers, magazines, and academic journals are posted at: www.DianaMuir.com
Rating:
Summary: See many more reviews
Review: Reviews from newspapers, magazines, and academic journals are posted at: www.DianaMuir.com
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Summary: Too much economy not enough nature.
Review: The title of this book is a bit misleading as the titular pond plays a minor role. This book is mainly concerned with the economic history of New England; the secondary concern is the effect this economic growth has had on New England's environment. As an overview of New England's growth from colonial struggles to industrial age giant, this book performs admirably and the material is well researched and documented. As a description of the environmental changes brought forth by this growth, the book is not quite as successful.The author occasionally intrudes with first person commentary, which seems strangely out of place and this often relates to the environmental impact of New England's economic transformations. A bit dry in tone with an annoying choice of typeface, Reflections is a work that will enhance your knowledge, but not necessarily entertain you at the same time.
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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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