The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States by Mark Fiege

Abstract

 Reviews The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States by Mark Fiege University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2012. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 600 pages. $34.95 cloth. In his opening chapter, Mark Fiege reveals why he wrote The Republic of Nature, which in turn reveals much about the content and character of thisremarkablebook.Someyearsback,while teaching American environmental history, two students asked him why the course did not cover more traditional topics in American history. Their query grabbed his imagination and held it. Indeed, many common topics in environmental history are absent or slighted in U.S. history surveys, while many traditional topics found in survey textbooks are absent or slighted in the study of environmental history. Fiegeembracedthestudents’challenge,selected nine common episodes in U.S. history surveys but uncommon in environmental history narratives ,andexplainedwhyandhownaturematteredineachepisode .Thatsimplebutingenious strategy sheds new light on familiar events.The same strategy worked well for Charles Beard in 1913 when he provided a class-based analysis of the founding of the new republic, and for Joan Scott in 1986 when she explained why gender was a useful category of analysis. Fiege seeks a similarlastingshiftwhereinhistoriansacknowledge the physical world as an inseparable and essential component shaping every important event in U.S. history. Contrary to what is implied in the subtitle, the book is not a comprehensive“environmental history of the United States.” Rather, it is a collection of artfully crafted profiles of iconic events: the witchcraft hysteria in seventeenthcentury New England, the Declaration of Independence, the antebellum rise of cotton agriculture and slavery in the South,the life and times of Abraham Lincoln,the CivilWar,building the first transcontinental railroad,building the atomic bomb,Jim Crow and Brown v.Board of Education, and the OPEC-spawned energy crisis of the 1970s. Each chapter explores the common theme: How did nature matter? The answers are richly complex, illuminating, and at times surprising. By “nature,” Fiege means the whole biophysical world: natural resources such as timber, soil, and water, of course, but also geography, climate, microorganisms, the built environment, domesticated plants and animals, and the human body — muscles (labor), alimentation, fatigue, fear, dreams, and desires. Nature in Fiege’s study includes both the material and the cultural. For the latter, he examines how conceptions of nature influenced keyAmerican religious and political ideologies, especially in the colonial era and early republic. Chapter 2 on the Enlightenment andAmerican Independence is especially strong on that topic. Readers will be surprised and delighted by how much Fiege accomplishes in each case study. Every chapter is deeply contextualized in time and place. Each provides decades of historical context leading up to the particular event being profiled and describes changing social, political, and economic conditions. Sometimes Fiege leaves nature out of the picture entirely while he elaborates on gender, class,race,religion,and politics.But the context is always useful, never excessive or redundant, a masterful and balanced blend of traditional history and environmental history. If not for a number of large chronological gaps in historical coverage, the book could suffice as an environmental history of the United States, despite its episodic structure. The most significant gap is between 1869 (where Chapter reviews  OHQ vol. 114, no. 1 6 ends) and World War II (where Chapter 7 begins). In contrast, Fiege has four chapters covering the early to mid 1800s. I expect most readers will be inclined to forgive his omission. At nearly 600 pages, it seems unreasonable to expect additional chapters. Moreover, I would not want to see any of the existing chapters reduced substantially or excised. Ideally, I would love to see Fiege in the future make this a two-volume work that corresponds with the classic two-volume U.S. history survey. A few new chapters on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would be sufficient.I would certainly assign it when teaching U.S. history survey classes, and I think many others also would profit by doing so. Gratefully,Fiege wrote for a broad audience. He is among that rare breed who can spin a tale that is accessible and satisfying to both undergraduates and academic specialists.More than that,The Republic of Nature not only...