Nature’s Entrepot

A thoughtful collection of essays exploring the relationship between Philadelphians and their natural landscape, successfully situating environmental history in the city and suburb. . . .Highly detailed yet very readable. Highly recommended.

A valuable resource . . . belongs in the library of anyone interested in learning about and from Philadelphia's rich record of environmental triumphs and tribulations. . . . Provides needed direction and lessons learned on how to be involved in deploying effective environmental policy and urban planning.

Anyone interested in environmental history, urban history and planning, or Philadelphia will want to read this book. . . .This collection of essays is more unified than many such volumes. Overlapping time periods and details that appear in several essays effectively link topics together, so discussions of discrete topics combine to provide a bigger picture while remaining informative in their own right.

In Nature's Entrepot, Black and Chiarappa have assembled a fascinating environmental history of one of America's pre-eminent metropolises, tracing how humans shaped — and were shaped by — the landscape and ecology of the country's 'First City.' This book greatly enhances our understanding of how Americans have controlled, loved, and exploited the natural world.

In evaluating the adaptability of an environmental ethos forged early in the nation's history, Nature's Entrepot reveals a complex and often troubled course of development in America's 'first city.' Rich with detail both about particular sites and the greater Philadelphia region, this collection represents a welcome addition to urban and environmental studies.

Succeeds as a comprehensive urban-environmental history of Philadelphia. . . . Each chapter demonstrates the limitations of human/nonhuman interface, the overlapping of environmental spheres, and illuminates how generations of Philadelphians conceived of their natural and built landscapes. Scholars of urban, environmental, cultural, and planning histories as well as anyone with a genuine interest in Philadelphia will find much of use in this wide-ranging collection.

The insightful essays of Nature's Entrepot explore the interplay of economic development, technology, and the environment in Philadelphia. Philadelphians routinely exploited, shaped, and degraded their city's natural resources and landscape with most 'solutions' to inconvenient ecological obstacles long since buried in time and memory. This collection successfully inserts environmental history into the understanding of Philadelphia's life and landscape in the past and today.

"This is environmental, political, economic, and social history combined to figure out how residents have lived over four centuries. Effective and often riveting.