Why read The Destruction of the Bison?

Book cover of The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920

Book description

For the last twenty years, The Destruction of the Bison has been an essential work in environmental history. Andrew C. Isenberg offers a concise analysis of the near-extinction of the North American bison population from an estimated 30 million in 1800 to fewer than 1000 a century later. His wide-ranging,…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Destruction of the Bison as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrea L. Smalley

Author

Economy and ecology are inextricably intertwined in The Destruction of the Bison. Isenberg takes what is a familiar story—the tragic extermination and near-extinction of the plains bison—and turns it into a cautionary tale about the far-reaching ecosystemic effects of unrestrained capitalistic exploitation. But what I like is that Isenberg’s is not just the same old song of Euroamerican rapaciousness and indigenous vulnerability. He details how Native American buffalo hunters played a crucial role in the species’ decline and how environmental change—droughts, population explosions, and animal diseases—interacted with human actions to doom the buffalo.

From Andrea's list on early America’s beastly nature.