Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston

Synopsis

Drinking a glass of tap water, strolling in a park, hopping a train for the suburbs: some aspects of city life are so familiar that we don't think twice about them. But such simple actions are structured by complex relationships with our natural world. The contours of these relationships are social, cultural, political, economic, and legal were established during America's first great period of urbanization in the nineteenth century, and Boston, one of the earliest cities in America, often led the nation in designing them. A richly textured cultural and social history of the development of nineteenth-century Boston, this book provides a new environmental perspective on the creation of America's first cities. Eden on the Charles explores how Bostonians channeled country lakes through miles of pipeline to provide clean water; dredged the ocean to deepen the harbor; filled tidal flats and covered the peninsula with houses, shops, and factories; and created a metropolitan system of parks and greenways, facilitating the conversion of fields into suburbs. The book shows how, in Boston, different class and ethnic groups brought rival ideas of nature and competing visions of a city upon a hill to the process of urbanization and were forced to conform their goals to the realities of Boston's distinctive natural setting.

Copyright:

2010

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

366 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780674048416

Publisher:

Harvard University Press

Date of Addition:

03/31/16

Copyrighted By:

President and Fellows of Harvard College

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Outdoors and Nature, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Politics and Government, Sociology

Submitted By:

Daproim Africa

Proofread By:

Daproim Africa

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.