“Naught interrupted the universal stillness of Nature…” wrote a
Maine farmer of life on the upper Kennebec River in 1835. Yet his idyll was
short-lived, as New England pioneers plundered the landscape, exploiting
wildlife, forests and rivers. Fortunately, as Common Lands, Common People
describes beautifully, the march of “progress” was slowed by the nascent
environmentalists of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire standing up to big
businesses of the day. The beauty of these states today is thanks to the
pressure of these early conservationists—who were not, the author
suggests, an elitist group drawn from the upper echelons of society as some
historians contend, but the “common people” of the title. The writing is vivid
and the history thorough. The message? “Little” people can make a big
difference. Published by Harvard University Press, £23.50, ISBN
067414581X.
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