HSTAA 221 Nash Spring 2009 Midterm Essay Questions Only two of these questions will appear on the exam; you will answer one. Read each question carefully. In all cases, you should provide specific examples to support your positions. Where relevant, you should draw on material from both lectures and readings; failure to do so will lower your grade on the question. 1. Historian Alfred Crosby has described the arrival of Europeans and their biotic baggage in the New World as the most important biologic event since the last glaciation. Do you agree? Weigh the evidence, both pro and con, for Crosby's position and explain your own stance. 2. Typically we think of European settlement as bringing immense changes to the North American landscape as settlers brought European modes of life to the &quot;new&quot; world. But the environment itself always sets certain limits on the settlement process. What visions did settlers try to impose on the North American landscape, and how did the local environments of New England, the southeast, and the Great Plains respond to European (or Euro-American) settlement? Would you describe the settlement process as one of &quot;conquest&quot; or one of &quot;adaptation&quot; or as something else altogether? 3. There is a long tradition in American history of viewing the pre-Columbian landscape of North America as &quot;pristine.&quot; As an environmental historian, (1) what evidence can you marshal to challenge this claim; and (2) how can you explain the development of &quot;the pristine myth&quot; (to use William Denevan's phrase) among nineteenth-century Americans? 4. Traditionally the dominant interpretation of the decline of the buffalo has been a simple story about the greed of white market hunters. How does your knowledge of environmental history complicate that story? Outline the environmental history of the buffalo, and explain how that animal's disappearance affected the human history of the Great Plains. 5. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, Americans had begun to respond to the negative effects of capitalist industrialization both politically and culturally. Compare and contrast two of these responses. Discuss the contexts that gave rise to these movements, the groups they engaged, and their most important political and social effects. 6. The years following European contact with the New World witnessed <a href="/keyword/sharp-decline/" >sharp decline</a> s in the populations of native North American species such as the buffalo, the beaver, and several varieties of fish (e.g., in New England). Discuss the specific reasons for these declines using two examples drawn from lectures and/or readings. Was the decline of these species the result of a unique set of factors in each case, or is it possible to discern larger patterns/causes that explain all of these population collapses? Who were most strongly affected by each of these collapses and how did those groups respond? 7. What was the Industrial Revolution, and how did it alter the lives and landscapes of (1) EuroAmericans in New ...