Historical Geography of North America Journal Review Essay

Historical Geography of North America Journal canvas - Essay ExampleManns sources are recognizable experts in this arena and the hold cites them prolifically. While many of Manns points chance upon enough logical and reasonable sense to dispel the widely held romantic version of the early settlements, the authors arguments entrust on a connect-the-dots logic in the absence of a complete historic record.The author succeeds in making the point that the early American settlers were not faced with the typically romantic ideal of cooperation with the environment and struggling against Mother Nature. Instead, he paints a stark picture of famine, disease, and constant hardship replete with starving and cannibalism. His vision of the Europeans being able to stave off hostile attacks from the inseparables is based on the theory that the Natives had been firmly weakened by Malaria. Mann also dispels the myth of Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith in 1607. However, this is a litera ry story that is part of Americas myth and hardly an historical moving revelation. The real power of the article is the sense the author gives us that, Much of what we learned in grade school about the fresh World encountered by the colonists at Jamestown turns out to be wrong. It demands further investigation and invites a much deeply researched debate.The author contends that the ecology of ... s little say offered for the damage done by the dew worm purportedly imported in European soil, it has been long held that the agricultural practices of Europe had a profound operation on the newborn World. The author also magnifies the destruction that domesticated animals did to the natives farmland, and the resulting tensions between the Natives and the Europeans. Here again, the author gives a reasonable view of animal farming in New England of large animals running wild and destroying the crops of the Natives. However, the evidence is anecdotal and does not consider the viewpoint that it may have been more likely that the animals were restrained and managed as they were in England, as that would be in the best interest of the settlers. However, Manns point that they altered the ecological landscape painting cannot be refuted.The strength of the article, apart from its intellectual stimulation, is its contention that European farming and agricultural practices forever change the landscape. Mann explains why the different approaches held by the Natives and Europeans to the concept of property ownership came at odds and favored the Europeans. The Native culture believed in a constantly evolving landscape where property rights would shift according to need and use. The Europeans believed in private property ownership and were thus able to accumulate property. The introduction of new plants and controlled agriculture invaded the New World and left a permanent change on the face of America. There can be little argument that tobacco and corn changed the soil, the land, the people, and the economy of the New World. In conclusion, this article is a well-written consensus of a number of noted experts. While it may be somewhat shy of hard evidence, the incomplete historical