Chronon, Bloch, and Prescott

Sadly, because I am borrowing books from the Library of Congress, I no longer have Bloch and Prescott in-front of me to answer this prompt. Thus I will have to make do with my notes.

I took a class during my undergraduate program here at mason, American West, from a teacher who specialized in Environmental History. It added quite an interesting perspective on the field and the works therein. Mans approach to his environment has a deep impact on society and its functions. One which is so engrained upon us, it’s hard to discern. This is extremely true in relation to Native American and “Western” approaches to the environment. Chronon, takes a very unique approach to the study of history. In Changes in the Land, he takes an ecological look at the field, which is something very new for the time he is writing. I am sure that as he researched and wrote his work, he probably wondered if he was so far on the fringe of History that it might not even be considered such. The same can be said for the work of Bloch. Both utilized new mediums and source material never explored before by the profession of history.

Chronon utilizes historically orthodox sources such as traveler’s accounts, colonial town/court/legislative records, and deed/survey records. With that, he also incorporates highly unorthodox, for 1980, sources such as relict stands of old-growth timber, tree rings, charcoal deposits, rotting trunks, overturned stumps, and most importantly fossil pollen in the pond and bog sediments. (Chronon, 6-7)

Bloch does something similar with his revolutionary approach in analyzing maps, agricultural techniques, diets, and other remnants of the masses throughout French History. Chronon and Bloch utilized sources that were unheard of in their respective days. However, in relation to the environment they had vastly different approaches. Bloch and Prescott utilized the environment only in so-far as it either a) helped to accentuate a point or b) help the reader immerse into the subject. Prescott, in chapter one, starts with an in-depth exploration of the Mexican environment. While reading, I found this to be very intriguing. In my mind, it was as if Prescott was painting a picture of a ripe fruit, one fit for the picking. Mexico is highly valuable in terms of natural resources and reading his first chapter, one can’t help but get the feeling that his painting of the terrain make one want to live there. Right from the start, it begins by creating a sense of want that defends conquest. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that Prescott was against the annexation of Texas and military invasion of Mexico. Perhaps the legitimacy of the Mexican government/people had changed in his mind from the time of Cortez.

Bloch also utilizes the fields, agriculture, food, and terrain in relation to the society. But, the environment itself was not his main focus. Rather, like Prescott, the environment was nothing more than a tool, a means to an end in studying the society. Chronon does something similar in creating a triangle of study between the English Colonists, the Natives (which he interestingly calls Indians in 1980), and the environment itself. In his “ecological history of colonial New England” Chronon validates the environment as a great factor of historical change. Though his main focus encompasses ecological history, he tends to also focus on the impact it had on the Natives and English. Chronon differs in stating “When human beings, Indians and European, inhabited and altered New England environments, they were a part of that linear history”. (33) Humans were inside and a part of history. (15) Chronon creates a relationship between humans and their environment in which both affect and sculpt the other. The notion helped to give birth to the field of Environmental History. Whether from the Natives burning of fields to creating open land and fertile ground, to the English implementation of towns, all things impact the environment in one way or another. The environment in turns affects how the society of its landscape adopts and functions.