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Sto caricando le informazioni... Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (1991)di William Cronon
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. It is not possible to praise this book too much. It leaves the reader enriched in so many areas. As the title implies, it is a deep history of Chicago during the 19th century but it is also a history of how Chicago interacted with its hinterland, an area that encompassed much of the Western USA. Unlike many other histories of cities, it's emphasis is on the influence had on it's countryside and the influence of it's countryside on Chicago. The book is a must read for anyone interested in developing a deeper understanding of American history in the 19th century, the development of the Western USA, and evolution of the railroad networks, and the history of technology and business. The book is very detailed without becoming mired down in boring details. Instead, the level of detail ensures that the reader is left with a deep understanding of each topic discussed in the book. The book begins with the early history of Chicago and the vision of early boosters of the city from the 1840s. It then covers the transportation networks that evolved to serve Chicago, particularly the railroads and the water transport on the Great Lakes. The book then goes into the role that Chicago played in the market for wheat. Innovations that led to Chicago's success with this commodity included the use of Grain Elevators, the Chicago Board of Trade, standardization of wheat qualities, and futures contracts. The book then moves on to discuss the lumber industry and explains the cash flow challenges of this industry as a consequence of the need to transport the logs via rivers at a time when they had enough water in them and were not frozen over. The lumber industry eventually fell as a victim to it's own success when the countryside began to run out of trees. The book then shifts to a discussion of the meat packing industry and the many innovations used in Chicago. These included the use of refrigerator rail cars, kept cold using blocks of ice collected from frozen lakes in the winter, in order to transport beef and not the entire cow. The book then continues with a mapping of capital and cash flows between Chicago and it's hinterland. This includes a deep dive into the challenges of wholesale and retail merchants in the hinterland. It also explains how their situation evolved with the increase in the rail network. Finally, this section discusses the implications of the catalog sales of Montgomery Wards and Sears. The final section of the book looks at the Chicago Fair of 1893. In addition to discussing the fair, the section talks about the general attitude of rural society towards Chicago and how Chicago became a magnet that attracted young rural kids to the big city. There is also a discussion of vice in Chicago. Finally, the Epilogue of the book discusses how the hinterland evolved into an area that attracted tourists from Chicago. I've been really into economic histories lately, and this analysis of Chicago's development and its relationship to the Midwest it came to dominate was both staggeringly detailed and elegantly well-written. On the highest level, this is sort of a refutation and extension of Frederick Jackson Turner's "frontier hypothesis" (short version: the old countries of Europe never had the Wild West's unique conflict between the "individual freedom" of society's rejects on the frontier and the "law and order" back in the Eastern cities, which helped explain why America was so different than its transatlantic ancestors). Cronon's copiously researched opinion is that city and country, far from being opposed, critically depend on each other. For example, he explores how the holy trinity of the grain elevator, grade standardization (a pile of wheat became "no. 1 spring wheat"), and futures trading at the Board of Trade revolutionized how farmers sold their goods, to the extent that Chicago is a world center of commodities trading to this day and the Midwest is some of the most productive farmland on the planet. Without Chicago (and to a lesser extent similar cities like St. Louis, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and Kansas City; the sections where he traces the rail and financial linkages between them are awesome), the settlers at the frontier never would have managed a living for want of markets; without the farmers producing goods for consumption and distribution, Chicago would have no reason for ever existing. Reading this book so soon after The Box brought home a lot of lessons on how miraculous our current standard of living is: in some ways the Industrial Revolution has never ended, and the great wave of commerce that stretches back to the early 1800s has only begun for most of the world. The book touches mainly grain, lumber, and meat out of the hundreds of goods that Chicago shipped, stored, refined, or revolutionized, but it does a fantastic job of showing not only why Chicago is one of the great cities of the world, but how America has evolved and innovated over time. Basically the only thing I didn't like about the book was that it could have been longer and included more insight from urban development economics. Cronon spends a great deal of time using Von Thünen's concentric circle model as a foil to show how cities don't just accrete in a vacuum but develop symbiotically with the hinterland they create, but it feels like he strawman's this very simple and very old model unnecessarily. If he had used some more modern work in urban development from someone like Ed Glaeser or Paul Krugman (who later wrote an excellent paper on this very book) I think readers would have benefited, but otherwise it was genius. If I was more into the Midwest I would have given this title another star. Even so, the perspective of the mid to late 19th century conversion of the Midwest from natural landscape to a completely extracted farm was enlightening. Excruciating, but enlightening. The prairies were plowed under on farms made possible by converting the great northern forests to lumber. Chicago markets and finance made it all possible. The voraciousness of markets and the shortsighted lure of profits today spell doom and destruction for natural and wild landscapes. The 19th century mindset held no conception that the natural world was a limited resource. And one that is necessary to the maintenance of life. How does the culture get changed to become aware and develop some reverence for the natural world? Books like this help. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Premi e riconoscimentiElenchi di rilievo
In this groundbreaking work, William Cronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history of nineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)977.311History and Geography North America Midwestern U.S. Illinois Cook; Chicago ChicagoClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Grains, lumber, and meat emerge as key commodities driving Chicago's growth. The Midwest's fertile prairies supplied grains that fueled the city's booming grain trade, earning Chicago the title of "breadbasket of the world." Simultaneously, the region's forests were harvested to meet the demand for lumber, supporting the city's construction industry. Meatpacking also played a significant role, with Chicago emerging as a hub for processing and distributing livestock from the Western plains. Innovations in refrigeration and transportation enabled Chicago to dominate the meat industry, supplying meat to consumers across the nation.
Cronon's meticulous research sheds light on the complex interplay between urbanization, environmental exploitation, and economic development. By examining Chicago's rise within the broader context of the Great West, Nature's Metropolis offers valuable insights into the interconnectedness of human societies and the natural world, challenging conventional narratives of urban growth.
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