Why am I passionate about this?

When I was young, I read Bambi…and it made me want to go hunting. Perhaps I missed the point. But at the time, I thought Bambi’s exploits sounded much like the animal yarns my dad brought home from his autumnal hunting trips. Both fascinated me. I loved the idea of getting a glimpse into a secret world where animals starred in their own stories and people were, at most, part of the scenery. As an environmental historian, I’ve tried to wring those kinds of stories out of historical documents that are much more suited for telling us about human actions and desires.


I wrote

Wild by Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization

By Andrea L. Smalley,

Book cover of Wild by Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization

What is my book about?

From the moment Europeans arrived in the New World, they were amazed by the abundant wild creatures they found there,…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Ecological Imperialism

Andrea L. Smalley Why did I love this book?

I cut my environmental historian’s teeth on Ecological imperialism. While not entirely about animals, Crosby’s book was the first to suggest to me how nonhuman creatures could influence human history. This is an environmental history classic by the author who coined the now widely used term “the Columbian Exchange.” In Ecological Imperialism, Crosby expands upon this concept to argue that European colonizing successes were due in large part to the introduction Old World animals, plants, and diseases to the Americas and elsewhere. Colonists reshaped the environment, creating ecological “Neo-Europes” in the New World. What I took away from this book was the novel notion that animals could be active colonizers themselves. I learned that animals could be responsible for changing the landscape and carrying foreign cultures into new lands. 

By Alfred W. Crosby,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Ecological Imperialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world - North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain; in many cases they were a matter of firearms against spears. But as Alfred W. Crosby maintains in this highly original and fascinating book, the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. European organisms had certain decisive advantages over their New World and Australian counterparts. The spread of European…


Book cover of Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade

Andrea L. Smalley Why did I love this book?

Keepers of the Game is a great book for provoking arguments. Martin asks why Native Americans willingly participated in the European fur trade, overhunting beavers and other wild furbearers to near-extinction in the process. His succinctly explained answer is a creative one that centers on the cooperative spiritual relationship between indigenous peoples and indigenous animals. His thesis has generated multiple scholarly counters—a clear sign of true originality. This book really made me think about the different kinds of relationships people have with animals. I think it’s far too easy to assume that we all see the same thing when looking at a wild creature. Martin’s work, though, impressed upon me the need to take seriously other, more unfamiliar perspectives on the natural world.    

By Calvin Martin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Keepers of the Game as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Examines the effects of European contact and the fur trade on the relationship between Indians and animals in eastern Canada, from Lake Winnipeg to the Canadian Maritimes, focusing primarily on the Ojibwa, Cree, Montagnais-Naskapi, and Micmac tribes.


Book cover of Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America

Andrea L. Smalley Why did I love this book?

Anderson’s book is, in many ways, an elaboration on Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism. But Creatures of Empire extends this earlier thesis to reveal how Europeans’ reliance on livestock as carriers of colonization resulted in unintended consequences and missed opportunities. Anderson’s work showed me how animals could act as both facilitators and obstacles to European “civilizing” work in the New World. What I find particularly interesting is Anderson’s detailed descriptions of how the American environment changed domestic animal behaviors and appearances. She gives European creatures credit for moving the colonial story in new directions without going too far into speculations about animals’ intentions and motivations.

By Virginia DeJohn Anderson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Creatures of Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When we think of the key figures of early American history, we think of explorers, or pilgrims, or Native Americans-not cattle, or goats, or swine. But as Virginia DeJohn Anderson reveals in this brilliantly original account of colonists in New England and the Chesapeake region, livestock played a vitally important role in the settling of the New World.
Livestock, Anderson writes, were a central factor in the cultural clash between colonists and Indians as well as a driving force in the expansion west. By bringing livestock across the Atlantic, colonists believed that they provided the means to realize America's potential.…


Book cover of The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920

Andrea L. Smalley Why did I love this book?

Economy and ecology are inextricably intertwined in The Destruction of the Bison. Isenberg takes what is a familiar story—the tragic extermination and near-extinction of the plains bison—and turns it into a cautionary tale about the far-reaching ecosystemic effects of unrestrained capitalistic exploitation. But what I like is that Isenberg’s is not just the same old song of Euroamerican rapaciousness and indigenous vulnerability. He details how Native American buffalo hunters played a crucial role in the species’ decline and how environmental change—droughts, population explosions, and animal diseases—interacted with human actions to doom the buffalo.

By Andrew C. Isenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Destruction of the Bison as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For the last twenty years, The Destruction of the Bison has been an essential work in environmental history. Andrew C. Isenberg offers a concise analysis of the near-extinction of the North American bison population from an estimated 30 million in 1800 to fewer than 1000 a century later. His wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study carefully considers the multiple causes, cultural and ecological, of the destruction of the species. The twentieth-anniversary edition includes a new foreword connecting this seminal work to developments in the field - notably new perspectives in Native American history and the rise of transnational history - and placing the…


Book cover of Vicious: Wolves and Men in America

Andrea L. Smalley Why did I love this book?

Like Isenberg, Coleman focuses on a single wild creature and its changing historical relationship with humans. Wolves went from hated in early America to loved (at least by some) in modern times. Vicious traces wolves’ shifting American identity and explains how that transformation occurred. Coleman offers a challenging thesis—one that draws upon biology, folklore, and history to explain the viciousness of American attacks on wolves. Though one may argue with his methods, his research is unquestionably innovative. I am particularly impressed with Coleman’s efforts to give voice to the wild creatures he studies. Wolves play a protagonist’s role in his reading of American colonization, and this is an interpretation I wholeheartedly endorse.

By Jon T. Coleman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vicious as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A provocative history of wolves in America and of the humans who first destroyed them and now offer them protection

"A shocking cultural study of our long, sadistic crusade against wolves. Moving brilliantly through history, economics, and biology, Coleman...explains America's fevered obsession with these animals."-Ron Charles, Washington Post Book Club

Over a continent and three centuries, American livestock owners destroyed wolves to protect the beasts that supplied them with food, clothing, mobility, and wealth. The brutality of the campaign soon exceeded wolves' misdeeds. Wolves menaced property, not people, but storytellers often depicted the animals as ravenous threats to human safety.…


Explore my book 😀

Wild by Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization

By Andrea L. Smalley,

Book cover of Wild by Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization

What is my book about?

From the moment Europeans arrived in the New World, they were amazed by the abundant wild creatures they found there, and they imagined a myriad of ways in which these beasts could be made to serve their colonial projects. In practice, however, American animals more often proved to be obstacles to Europeans’ colonizing designs. Not simply acted upon by being commodified, harvested, and exterminated, wild animals were active subjects in the colonial story, altering its outcome in unanticipated ways. My book rewrites the familiar stories of early America as animal tales. I show how beavers, wolves, fish, deer, and bison became legal actors in a centuries-long colonizing process that was reenacted on each new wild animal frontier.

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Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

By Lyle Greenfield,

Book cover of Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

Lyle Greenfield Author Of Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward. 

Lyle's book list on restoring your belief in human possibility

What is my book about?

We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike. 

My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…

Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

By Lyle Greenfield,

What is this book about?

Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.

First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…


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Interested in human geography, wolves, and nature?

Human Geography 11 books
Wolves 118 books
Nature 158 books