Book ID: CBB634126477

Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park (2017)

unapi

Kinzer, Mark (Author)


University of South Carolina Press


Publication Date: 2017
Physical Details: 328
Language: English

Located at the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers in central South Carolina, Congaree National Park protects the nation's largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest. Modern visitors to the park enjoy a pristine landscape that seems ancient and untouched by human hands, but in truth its history is far different. In Nature's Return, Mark Kinzer examines the successive waves of inhabitants, visitors, and landowners of this region by synthesizing information from property and census records, studies of forest succession, tree-ring analyses, slave narratives, and historical news accounts. Established in 1976, Congaree National Park contains within its boundaries nearly twenty-seven thousand acres of protected uplands, floodplains, and swamps. Once exploited by humans for farming, cattle grazing, plantation agriculture, and logging, the park area is now used gently for recreation and conservation. Although the impact of farming, grazing, and logging in the park was far less extensive than in other river swamps across the Southeast, it is still evident to those who know where to look. Cultivated in corn and cotton during the nineteenth century, the land became the site of extensive logging operations soon after the Civil War, a practice that continued intermittently into the late twentieth century. From burning canebrakes to clearing fields and logging trees, inhabitants of the lower Congaree valley have modified the floodplain environment both to ensure their survival and, over time, to generate wealth. In this they behaved no differently than people living along other major rivers in the South Atlantic Coastal Plain. Today Congaree National Park is a forest of vast flats and winding sloughs where champion trees dot the landscape. Indeed its history of human use and conservation make it a valuable laboratory for the study not only of flora and fauna but also of anthropology and modern history. As the impact of human disturbance fades, the Congaree's stature as one of the most important natural areas in the eastern United States only continues to grow.

...More
Reviewed By

Review T. Robert Hart (2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Journal of Southern History (pp. 137-138). unapi

Review Alyssa D Warrick (January 2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Environmental History (pp. 192-194). unapi

Review Alyssa D Warrick (January 2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Environmental History (pp. 192-194). unapi

Review Alyssa D Warrick (January 2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Environmental History (pp. 192-194). unapi

Review Alyssa D Warrick (January 2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Environmental History (pp. 192-194). unapi

Review Alyssa D Warrick (January 2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Environmental History (pp. 192-194). unapi

Review Alyssa D Warrick (January 2019) Review of "Nature's Return: An Environmental History of Congaree National Park". Environmental History (pp. 192-194). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB634126477/

Similar Citations

Book Darren Frederick Speece; Paul S. Sutter; (2019)
Defending Giants: The Redwood Wars and the Transformation of American Environmental Politics (/isis/citation/CBB502336211/)

Book Feeser, Andrea; (2013)
Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life (/isis/citation/CBB001452060/)

Thesis Hogarth, Rana Asali; (2012)
Comparing Anatomies, Constructing Races: Medicine and Slavery in the Atlantic World, 1787--1838 (/isis/citation/CBB001561004/)

Book Michelle Mart; (2015)
Pesticides, A Love Story: America's Enduring Embrace of Dangerous Chemicals (/isis/citation/CBB036580158/)

Book Laura Alice Watt; David Lowenthal; (2016)
The Paradox of Preservation: Wilderness and Working Landscapes at Point Reyes National Seashore (/isis/citation/CBB843463060/)

Article Les Levidow; Davis Sansolo; Monica Schiavinatto; (2021)
Agroecological innovation constructing socionatural order for social transformation: Two case studies in Brazil (/isis/citation/CBB130494145/)

Book Nelson, Arvid; (2005)
Cold War Ecology: Forests, Farms, and People in the East German Landscape, 1945--1989 (/isis/citation/CBB000772798/)

Book Otis Graham; (2015)
Presidents and the American Environment (/isis/citation/CBB836718426/)

Book Mario Jimenez Sifuentez; (2016)
Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest (/isis/citation/CBB044049827/)

Book R. Douglas Hurt; (2015)
Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South (/isis/citation/CBB981352469/)

Book Swanson, Drew A.; (2014)
A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South (/isis/citation/CBB001422341/)

Book Busch, Akiko; (2013)
The incidental steward: reflections on citizen science (/isis/citation/CBB844467183/)

Article Tello, Enric; Valldepera, Natàlia; , Anna Ollés; Marull, Joan; Coll, Francesc; Warde, Paul; Wilcox, Paul Thomas; (2014)
Looking Backwards into a Mediterranean Edge Environment: Landscape Changes in El Congost Valley (Catalonia), 1850--2005 (/isis/citation/CBB001421413/)

Thesis Jazmin Antwynette Evans; (2019)
Scientific Racism's Role in the Social Thought of African Intellectual, Moral, and Physical Inferiority (/isis/citation/CBB578195827/)

Article Frédérique Louveau; (2021)
The Spirits of the Great Green Wall in Senegal: Spirituality, Ecology, and Secularization (/isis/citation/CBB520173626/)

Book V. Alaric Sample; R. Patrick Bixler; Char Miller; (2016)
Forest Conservation in the Anthropocene: Science, Policy, and Practice (/isis/citation/CBB020363487/)

Authors & Contributors
Bixler, R. Patrick
Mart, Michelle
Sample, V. Alaric
Monica Schiavinatto
Busch, Akiko
Watt, Laura Alice
Concepts
Agriculture
Forests and forestry
Slavery and slaves
Wildlife conservation
Environmental history
Economic botany; plant cultivation; horticulture
Time Periods
21st century
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
18th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
South Carolina (U.S.)
California (U.S.)
Pacific Northwest (North America)
Southern states (U.S.)
Jamaica (Caribbean)
Institutions
United States. National Park Service
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment