Between Land and Sea: The Atlantic Coast and the Transformation of New England by Christopher L. Pastore

Abstract

Between Land and Sea: The Atlantic Coast and the Transformation of New England, by Christopher L. Pastore. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2014. ix, 302 pp. $35.00 US (cloth). As the effects of climate change become more pronounced in the modern world, environmental histories like Between Land and Sea will be important to help us understand the relationship between human and non-human nature. Humans alter nature and nature shapes the development of societies; the effects of this interaction have changed over the millennia, but humans have never lived in a Disneyesque world of complete harmony with nature. Christopher L. Pastore makes this point clearly in Between Land and Sea by looking beyond the immediate effects of human occupation on the shores of Bay. He incorporates an ever-widening hinterland into his analysis of the Bay and its resources. In so doing, he makes connections between the environment and economic activities that had not been obvious before, thus giving the reader a better sense of how decisions made in one place ripple through societies and across oceans. One prominent theme in the book is the liminal nature of Bay. The ever-shifting space at the water's edge made the region difficult to define, to put boundaries around. From the beginning of their settlements, Europeans struggled to place legal and intellectual limits on this amorphous area. By the nineteenth century, Americans believed they had obtained control, not just over the Bay itself, but over much of its watershed, changing the region dramatically. These efforts to delineate and control the Bay illustrate the idea that Narragansett Bay was a deeply human construct (8). Geological forces working over millennia created the ecosystem, but the fights over political jurisdiction and economic activities made what we think of as Bay. Natural resources do not exist until human needs or desires create them. The resources (as defined by humans) available in any region shape the way that societies develop. At the same time, the uses of, and struggles over, these resources alter the environment and thus the existence, not only of the resources, but also of the societies that created them. The book unfolds roughly chronologically, but rather than a straight narrative of change over time, Pastore chooses to focus on specific events and issues to illustrate his argument. The first chapter, for example, discusses the transition of wampum from a ceremonial item used to build relationships among Native Americans to a currency shared by Europeans and Native Americans. …