Editorial Reviews
Review
It delights me that Timothy Silver covers the early history involving Dr. Elisha Mitchell and others, as well as the recent scientific research by Dr. Robert Bruck dealing with air pollution that damages forests, streams, and human health. The book is thorough and well done.(Hugh Morton)
This book is both a major contribution to our regional literature and a model of what an "environmental history" can and should be. (Christopher Camuto, author of A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge)
Silver portrays the majestic environmental history of Mount Mitchell as set within the deep history of the Appalachian Mountains and the varied, often unanticipated ways that nature and humanity have jointly shaped the region. (Carolyn Merchant, author of The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution)
Book Description
Each year, thousands of tourists visit Mount Mitchell, the most prominent feature of North Carolina's Black Mountain range and the highest peak in the eastern United States. Environmental historian Timothy Silver explores the long and complicated history of this intriguing landscape, drawing on both the historical record and his experience in the Black Mountains as a backpacker and fly fisherman. He chronicles the geological and environmental forces that created the mountains, then traces their history of environmental change and human intervention from the days of Indian-European contact to today.
Among the many tales Silver recounts is that of Elisha Mitchell, the renowned geologist and University of North Carolina professor for whom Mount Mitchell is named, who fell to his death there in 1857. But nature's stories--of forest fires, chestnut blight, competition among plants and animals, insect invasions, and, most recently, airborne toxins and acid rain--are also part of Silver's narrative, making it the first history of the Appalachians in which the natural world gets equal time with human history. It is only by understanding the dynamic between these two forces, Silver says, that we can begin to protect the Black Mountains for future generations.
Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America
Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America,Timothy Silver,The University of North Carolina Press,080782755X,Black Mountains,Ecology,Environmental Science,History,Human ecology,Mount Mitchell (Mountain),Mountain ecology,Mountains,Nature,Nature/Ecology,North Carolina,United States - South - South Atlantic (General),Historical geology,Mount Mitchell; Black Mountains; southern Appalachians; Mount Mitchell State Park; Mount Mitchell Game Refuge; environmental history; forest history; forestry; Pisgah culture; Cherokees; Hernando de Soto; Andre Michaux; Elisha Mitchell; Thomas Clingman; Big Tom Wilson; Locke Craig; John Simcox Holmes; balsam woolly adelgid; acid deposition; spruce-fir forests; natural history of North Carolina; Blue Ridge Parkway; automobile tourism; camping; backpacking; hiking; flyfishing,Nature / Ecology,Places & peoples: general interest
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