From the 12 pages of Cronon s book what did you find what were the main points what did you not understand besides post hoc ergo propter hoc When you ve taken history in the past what were you taught Where you taught that history was the study of great men s actions If so who were those men How many of them were women Where there stages of history that every place seems to go through Was the past worse than the present Has history been a continual fall from social or environmental grace Were past civilizations more sustainable than the present Were past civilizations more egalitarian then in the present or Has history been an ongoing process of improvement Have European nations and settler societies gained more from the societies and ecologies of their historical colonies or underdeveloped neighbors than colonies and neighbors have gained from European nations and settler societies Does nature effect society more or does society effect nature more If society changes nature and nature acts as it would anyway is that a natural disaster Examples Building on a known earthquake fault Building in floodplain Building on beaches Building where fire is a regular occurrence If society changes nature and nature acts under new conditions is that a natural disaster Monocropping and pest outbreaks Conventional farming and erosion Irrigation from aquifers and drought cycles Perhaps global warming How about acid rain Quick general theory of social ecological vertical concentric stratification and its connection with the closing of the American frontier Have Americans always thought the same things about nature that we do Yes No Maybe Don t Know Which Americans Have farmers always felt the same about nature as today s farmers Yes No Maybe Don t Know Which of today s farmers Have workers always felt the same about nature as today s workers Yes No Maybe Don t Know Which of today s workers What level of income What ethnicity What religion What race What gender What sexuality What region state What is a worker Does it matter if they are a service retail worker transportation delivery worker industrial worker not unionized unionized skilled artisan management academic natural physical scientist practical trade teacher social scientist humanities Did society s relationship with nature used to be better why worse why different what do you mean Has the history of the ecological and economic development of the United States and Canada been good for the people of North America in rural areas why in urban areas why in suburban areas why What is are the cause s of today s environmental problems population consumption pollution depletion bad inefficient technology international conglomerates corporations too much little government How do you know Has the media taught you what you know Have your parents taught you what you know Have your teachers taught you what you know Have you researched it yourself In Books Magazines On the Web Are these things unbiased Is my account going to be unbiased How do you evaluate the media your parents your teachers your sources me Cronon writes about the difficulty of knowing whether or not people act because of environmental changes or events or if they act to stave off or possibly even generate environmental changes or events How do you tell coherent planning from reactive responses to imprudent prior actions when both are legitimated in the same fashion in public documents And this is not only a problem for the political social and humanistic sciences natural science is used retrospectively all the time Science that has been utterly rejected by people in power will frequently be invoked or supported as social and ecological conditions change For that matter scientists will change what they research and say to fit prevailing power relations and funding opportunities This chapter sets the stage for the whole book GENERAL STATEMENT on page 13 History is about WHO did WHAT but WHY WHO did WHAT and HOW it contributed to nature and society as we know it Nature as essence of something that which makes something uniquely what it is Platonic but how do you know the nature of nature Science as qualitative categorization Nature as process tendencies of becoming that a thing has Aristotelean but how do we know what underlies the processes we can discern Science as historical tendencies Nature as the set of all things that exist Enlightenment sets can be divided into subsets w o contradicting essences tendencies Science as the determination of set mechanisms Nature as the root of emotion religion godliness Romantic reaction to mechanistic society Science is worldly Nature is our souls