Lisa Brady provides a unique perspective on the Civil War with her environmental history War Upon the Land<\/i>, as she effectively portrays the importance of the landscape during the Civil War as well as how both the Union and Confederacy approached the environment.\u00a0 However, while her argument is still convincing, I disagree with how she defines nature as a completely separate entity from human society.\u00a0 In her eyes (as Manish noted) nature no longer exists once altered by humans, and that once human\u2019s affect nature it becomes an \u201cagroecosystem.\u201d\u00a0 Brady\u2019s definition of nature doesn\u2019t change her argument all too much, as the argument about the control of nature of the North and the coexistence of nature of the South are unaffected, yet as it pertains to this class, I can\u2019t help but be thrown off by how she disregards humans as a part of nature.<\/p>\n
As Manish wrote below, the different perceptions of wilderness were a key element to Brady\u2019s work, and I agree with Manish\u2019s assessment that the Union\u2019s control over the landscape was a result of the industrialism in the North.\u00a0 I disagree that these attempted manipulations of the landscape were a bad thing, however, but instead believe that the North\u2019s manipulation of nature was indicative of the changing landscape of the world and how human\u2019s were playing a greater role within nature than they were previously.\u00a0 The South may have been in harmony with nature (if you consider them different entities), yet their society was reliant on the widespread production of products grown from the earth (tobacco, cotton, etc.) that were reliant on the archaic institution of slavery.\u00a0 Slavery is a part of human society, but as humans progressed and began realizing it was wrong in the 19th<\/sup> century (evidenced by countries across Latin America abandoned the institution throughout the century, most of which abandoned it before the US), the rise of industrialism occurred at the same time.\u00a0 With the South\u2019s coexisting with nature, as humans in rural society\u2019s had done forever, they were also rooted in institutions like slavery.\u00a0 As humans began to make their mark on the environment with the growth of cities and technology, immoral institutions slowly have disbanded. \u00a0I apologize as this paragraph has reached \u201crant status\u201d so I\u2019ll sum up my thoughts briefly: Brady seems to portray the South\u2019s relationship with nature as a positive thing and the North\u2019s approach to nature (and the toll it takes on the environment) as a negative, where I believe that humanity and nature go hand in hand, and as humans become more involved in nature, humanity has become more moral due to the greater communication and control of the landscape.<\/p>\n The Civil War was a battle between the developing North and the unchanging South, and the result of the war left the much of the Southern landscape in ruin.\u00a0 I believe that humanity is part of nature, and that the result of the war was just a further expansion of the urbanizing society. \u00a0Brady\u2019s work effectively pointed out how the landscape played a role in the War with the different sides, yet her portrayal and definition of nature still bothers me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lisa Brady provides a unique perspective on the Civil War with her environmental history War Upon the Land, as she effectively portrays the importance of the landscape during the Civil War as well as how both the Union and Confederacy approached the environment.\u00a0 However, while her argument is still convincing, I disagree with how she … <\/p>\n