Cronon - ecological / environmental, cultural, and ecomonic history.

  Both Bloch and Prescott seem to be concerned with land or geography as either a given (land / landlords), or as a backdrop to the setting of the exploits of Cortes in Mexico.  Neither Bloch nor Prescott had an inclination to look at things through an ecological lens.  As methods, interpretations, and conclusions change over time - historiographically speaking - along comes Cronon and his use of ecology as a lens to examine the cultural conflicts between two or more peoples occupying the same place, at the same time, and the ecological transformation that takes place.  Cronon refutes the "improvement" theory of the English system of agriculture and husbandry that one could see Prescott embracing.  As a result Cronon is concerned about ecolology and the environment in a way Bloch and Prescott seemingly are not.  And, although Cronon recognizes the environment as an independent entity - an actor with its own agency, he does seem to attribute all of the ecological and micro-climatic change to human agency.   Fascinating are the ways Cronon posits the European invasion as bringing "Economic and ecological imperialisms" which reinforced one another, and that "capitalism and environmental degradation went hand in hand."  While not ignoring Indians as modifiers of the environment, Cronon seems to tie the bulk of environmental change to the economics of the European inspired marketplace (market forces?) and lets the Indians off the hook as emerging capitalists, with perhaps no other choice than to be compelled by the system of trade being thrust upon them.  The study of place names, and the concepts of property rights, also facilitate the examination of the interplay between Indian and English cultures and the affect on the New England ecological transformation:  "It was the attachment of property in land to a marketplace, and the accumulation of its value in a society with institutionalized ways of recognizing abstract wealth... that committed the English in New England to an expanding economy that was ecologically transformative." (79)