Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England (Revisiting New England)

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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.