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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
I have mixed feelings on Nature's Metropolis -- it's an incredibly well-researched book that despite a rough framework still ends up reading like a list of semi-related statistics and facts rather than a cohesive narrative.
Cronon should be lauded for digging up interesting information in the darkest corners of dusty libraries, leafing through bankruptcy records and credit receipts from two centuries ago. The book is interesting enough for the mass of statistics and insights, and anyone interested in economic histories will find plenty of meat on the bone.
Where it falls short is a unifying hypothesis or perspective. Cronon does open, close, and intermittently bring up a refrain about city and country being a false dichotomy -- that in reality, it's all one inter-connected system. But this is fairly obvious to anyone with a passing understanding of commerce.
Cronon should be lauded for digging up interesting information in the darkest corners of dusty libraries, leafing through bankruptcy records and credit receipts from two centuries ago. The book is interesting enough for the mass of statistics and insights, and anyone interested in economic histories will find plenty of meat on the bone.
Where it falls short is a unifying hypothesis or perspective. Cronon does open, close, and intermittently bring up a refrain about city and country being a false dichotomy -- that in reality, it's all one inter-connected system. But this is fairly obvious to anyone with a passing understanding of commerce.
informative
medium-paced
I'd been meaning to read this book for years, and it did not disappoint! Engaging to read and I learned a ton. I grew up on a farm in Iowa and it was fascinating to learn about how grain, lumber, and livestock developed as industries as transportation networks and financial markets grew and how that in many ways created the landscape that persists today.
Nobody likes memorizing dates when learning about history, but taking note a few milestone years can be really helpful in orienting yourself when you learn something new. I knew that 1848 is a key year in European history, what with the Communist Manifesto, and revolutions breaking out in many places, but I learned from this book that 1848 was also key year in the history of Chicago (and the agricultural and industrial development of the Great West that Cronon describes):
In 1848:
Nobody likes memorizing dates when learning about history, but taking note a few milestone years can be really helpful in orienting yourself when you learn something new. I knew that 1848 is a key year in European history, what with the Communist Manifesto, and revolutions breaking out in many places, but I learned from this book that 1848 was also key year in the history of Chicago (and the agricultural and industrial development of the Great West that Cronon describes):
In 1848:
- Opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal
- First telegraph in Chicago
- Construction of the first railroad began (the Galena and Chicago Union—opened by 1850)
- First steam-powered grain elevator built in Chicago (the first was used in Buffalo in 1842)
- Chicago Board of Trade founded
And thereabouts: multiple stockyards were built in the 1840s and 1850s, and the McCormick reaper works was built in Chicago in 1847.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The book is not only about Chicago but informative and insightful about the businesses of grain farming; logging and lumbering; husbandry and butchering; and rural consumer marketing.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
A very detailed and interesting account of the interlocking factors that led to Chicago becoming a metropolis. It's a pity that I had to read it for a uni assignment which led to me rushing through half of it to be able to finish it on time, but at least from what I retained it's a very good book.
The story of city and country, shaping and reshaping each other. Markets turning nature into capital, until exhausted or totally transformed, to meet the voracious demands of us all.
informative
slow-paced
Three and a half stars. I probably should give it four on the sheer quality of scholarship but its a bit too cheerleadery of gilded-age capitalists for me.
This is a classic work that combines economic and environmental history, and shows the interconnectedness of city and country. The chapters on grain, logging, meat processing, and networks of debt were fascinating and showed the dramatic changes introduced by technologies like railroads, refrigeration cars and grain elevators. The rise of powerful economic entities like the Chicago Board of Trade as a result of the grading system which could only exist due to the mechanical grain elevator was particularly interesting.
I found myself sometimes frustrated by the way capital accumulation, monopolies, and other aspects of 19th century capitalism seemed inevitable or natural rather than constructed - the market's *existence* is part of the "second nature" that humans put on top of first nature, as Cronon puts it, and that contingency needs to be acknowledged. The same goes for Cronon's dismissal of the Granger movement as mostly ignorant farmers who didn't know how good they had it thanks to the city - their protests were not illegitimated by the fact that in some ways they also benefited from the system.
This is a classic work that combines economic and environmental history, and shows the interconnectedness of city and country. The chapters on grain, logging, meat processing, and networks of debt were fascinating and showed the dramatic changes introduced by technologies like railroads, refrigeration cars and grain elevators. The rise of powerful economic entities like the Chicago Board of Trade as a result of the grading system which could only exist due to the mechanical grain elevator was particularly interesting.
I found myself sometimes frustrated by the way capital accumulation, monopolies, and other aspects of 19th century capitalism seemed inevitable or natural rather than constructed - the market's *existence* is part of the "second nature" that humans put on top of first nature, as Cronon puts it, and that contingency needs to be acknowledged. The same goes for Cronon's dismissal of the Granger movement as mostly ignorant farmers who didn't know how good they had it thanks to the city - their protests were not illegitimated by the fact that in some ways they also benefited from the system.