Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review[M]eticulously researched and steeped in contemporary theory...This fascinating, important book is a vital contribution to the developing field of extinction studies within the environmental humanities. * Choice *
Timothy Sweet has deep experience thinking about the intersection of American environmental, cultural, and intellectual history, from the first decades of European colonization through the nineteenth century. He is perfectly prepared to tackle questions around megafauna extinction narratives and debates in the Americas.
Extinction and the Human is compelling, learned, wide-ranging, trustworthy, and thorough. * Susan Scott Parrish, University of Michigan *
Timothy Sweet has written a richly researched, theoretically sophisticated, and ultimately engrossing book. Filled with scenes of literary and cultural exchange, his accounts of the near or complete extinction of mastodons, whales, and bison have the power to stop us in our tracks, forcing us to rethink the roles and relationships of the human and nonhuman in new, sometimes visceral ways. * Randall Fuller, University of Kansas *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. From the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene
Chapter 1. A Prehistory of Extinction
Chapter 2. Mammoths, the "Oeconomy of Nature," and Human Ecology
Chapter 3. Does the Whale Diminish? Will He Perish?
Chapter 4. Buffalo Commons, Buffalo Nation
Reprise. The Human Exception Revisited
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
