Abstract
Environmental History of the Hudson River would more accurately be titled environmental histories—multiple histories. This edited volume, based on a conference convened by the Hudson River Environmental Society, presents twenty-two unique histories of the Hudson River landscape, each focusing on different time spans, resources, plant and animal species, human activities, and impacts. The thirty-three authors and coauthors represent a range of disciplines—archaeology, history, law, and a variety of sciences. Editor Robert Henshaw, of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, makes the point that biologists and social scientists need to share information in order to fill the gaps in each discipline’s historical sources and methods. The questions that unite disciplines are—how has human action changed the ecology of the Hudson River, and how has the river shaped human activities? The resulting volume is a mix of papers that draws upon the scholarly and research standards of the authors’ individual fields of study.
In order to organize the range of topics and variety of approaches, Henshaw has categorized the chapters into four sections: “History and Biology—Providing Explanations,” “River of Resources,” “River of Commerce,” and “River of Inspiration.” The “River of Resources” is by far the largest section of the book, and the emphasis here is on scientific papers. It includes chapters on fish populations, reptile and amphibian populations, river morphology and sedimentation, vegetation dynamics, and habitat loss. In addition to science, this section includes archaeological studies (such as the chapter that examines Native American shifts in land use extending back 13,000 years), as well as chapters that emphasize cultural and economic history (such as the aesthetics of landscape design promoted by Andrew Jackson Downing and its influence on the use of exotic invasive plants). The “River of Commerce” section also mixes together scientific research (e.g., the impact of cadmium on blue crab populations) and historical studies (e.g., the variety of transportations afforded and necessitated by the river).
Although the biology–history mixing happens to some degree within most of the chapters, specific disciplines dominate each chapter. For example, the authors of “Linking Uplands to the Hudson River: Lake to Marsh Records of Climate Change and Human Impact over Millennia” look at pollen, macrofossil, and charcoal data over a span of almost 9,000 years to reconstruct vegetation records, illustrating their work with diagrams of pollen, spore, and seed counts. The chapter that follows, “Vegetation Dynamics in the Northern Shawangunk Mountains: The Last Three Hundred Years,” is a cultural and economic history in which the authors closely examine extraction of forest resources for specific human uses during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the resulting changes in vegetation composition, and support their historical study with archival photographs. The volume’s juxtaposition of chapters, and the resulting shifts in time periods and disciplinary approaches, can sometimes be disorienting.
Henshaw works very hard to bring logic and a collective mission to these disparate chapters. The first section of the book, “History and Biology—Providing Explanations,” gives an indication of how important this is to Henshaw. One of the chapters in this section (“Symbioses Between Biologists and Social Scientists” by Lucille Lewis Johnson) is devoted to making explicit connections between the variety of themes that are present in the book and the different chapters that contribute to each of those themes. Johnson illustrates these points through a series of five complex flow charts, explicitly mapping out the connections between certain chapters that feature social–cultural–economic histories and chapters focused on biology and ecosystems.
In the final section of the book, “River of Inspiration,” the Hudson River histories are linked to a call for action, to human efforts to preserve and protect the river and its watershed. Although the relationship between environmental history and landscape management and regulation is implicit throughout the book, and even quite explicit in a few chapters, in the last chapter written by editor Robert Henshaw, history becomes a lesson to help guide our environmental future. Drawing from various chapters and authors in the book, Henshaw suggest ways to respond to environmental histories through regulations, research, education, and advocacy. For planners, this brief overview of strategies is relevant, but probably already well known.
This volume is not specifically aimed at planners who may already be familiar with its take-home points: history is important for future decision making; environmental histories and futures benefit from multidisciplinary approaches; and the dynamic relationship between human and ecological activities must always be considered. The collection, however, does contribute a casebook supporting these important environmental planning lessons.