Karl Jacoby\u2019s Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation<\/i> presents a view of the early conservation movement from the generally untold view of economically middle and low-class individuals. As Jacoby writes in his conclusion, \u201cthe powerful can attempt to advance their own visions of the past, dismissing those whose recollections they find threatening or inconvenient\u201d (p. 193). Jacoby seeks to counter such attempts by unveiling the little known stories of the individuals affected by the conservation of the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n
The issue of land ownership plays a prominent role throughout the book. In the past, I have often learned about Native Americans who lost their land to the US Government because of their unfamiliarity with white ideas of land ownership. What was interesting to me was the substantial discussion of similar experiences for white settlers in the Adirondacks. Even those families who had called the Adirondacks home for generations were declared squatters because they lacked the proper proof of land ownership. By depicting the shared experiences of whites and Native Americans, Jacoby\u2019s work crossed ethnic and cultural boundaries and instead told a comprehensive story of the effects of the conservation movement on less privileged individuals.<\/p>\n
Another aspect of Jacoby\u2019s work that I found very thought provoking was his statement, \u201cwilderness reveals itself to be not some primeval character of nature but rather an artifact of modernity, a concept employed by conservationists to naturalize the transformations taking place in rural America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries\u201d (p. 198). In my opinion, wilderness is both a primeval character of nature and an artifact of modernity. Wilderness, as I see it, is nature without human intervention. Throughout the semester we have had many discussions about what level of human involvement in the environment can be considered natural. As Ian<\/a> noted in an earlier post, even something as technologically advanced as a city can be described as the next phase of ecological evolution. There is no such ambiguity when describing the wilderness, as it is nature in its virgin state. Thus, it seems to me, the wilderness has always existed. While wilderness has always been a primeval character of nature, it is also now an artifact of modernity because of the conservation movement. The conservation movement, at its core, is an attempt to preserve wilderness. In order to justify the need for preservation, areas such as the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon have been portrayed as the last of their kind. In an effort to preserve such places for posterity, the conservation movement has essentially cast wilderness as an artifact that needs to be passed down to later generations. Areas such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon are now very similar to museums. They attract tourists because they hearken back to a lost age, when the landscape was not dominated by human creations. In this sense, wilderness has most certainly become an artifact of modernity. This does not mean, however, that it is no longer a primeval character of nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Karl Jacoby\u2019s Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation presents a view of the early conservation movement from the generally untold view of economically middle and low-class individuals. As Jacoby writes in his conclusion, \u201cthe powerful can attempt to advance their own visions of the past, dismissing those whose … <\/p>\n