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A review by jbxdavis
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon
3.0
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.