The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750 1920 Contributor(s): Isenberg, Andrew C. (Author), Worster, Donald (Editor), Crosby, Alfred W. (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0521771722 ISBN-13: 9780521771726 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $98.06 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 2000 * Not available - Not in print at this time *Annotation: This first book-length study of the bison by an environmental historian explains the decline of the North American bison population from an estimated 300 million in 1800 to fewer than 1,000 a century later, surveying both the ecological and social causes of the animal's destruction. 7 illustrations. 2 maps. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Nature | Animals - Wildlife - History | United States - General |
Dewey: 333.959 |
LCCN: 99037543 |
Series: Studies in Environment and History |
Physical Information: 0.83" H x 6.24" W x 9.26" (1.10 lbs) 220 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The Destruction of the Bison explains the decline of the North American bison population from an estimated 30 million in 1800 to fewer than 1000 a century later. In this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, Andrew C. Isenberg argues that the cultural and ecological encounter between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the Great Plains was the central cause of the near extinction of the bison. Drought and the incursion of domestic livestock and exotic species such as horses into the Great Plains all threatened the Western ecosystem, which was further destabilized as interactions between Native Americans and Euroamericans created new types of hunters in both cultures: mounted Indian nomads and white commercial hide hunters. In the early twentieth century, nostalgia about the very cultural strife that first threatened the bison became, ironically, an important impetus to its preservation. |
Contributor Bio(s): Isenberg, Andrew C.: - Andrew C. Isenberg is Professor of History at Temple University. Isenberg's research interests include environmental history, the history of the North American West, the United States from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, and the encounter between Euroamericans and natives. He is the author of Mining California: An Ecological History (2005) and the editor of The Nature of Cities: Culture, Landscape, and Urban Space (2006). |