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Review Of People And The Land Through Time: Linking Ecology And History By Emily W. B. Russell, Emily Greenwald

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

While some environmental historians have used the insights of the natural sciences in their historical work, Emily Russell, offering a scientist's perspective, challenges ecologists to incorporate historians' methods and insights into their studies. In People and the Land through Time, Russell outlines working principles for the "historical ecologist," a scholar who traces past human impacts on particular ecosystems. She makes it clear that her emphasis is on ecological systems rather than humans, but argues that ecosystems can't be fully understood without accounting for how human actions have affected them.

The book provides an introduction to methods and a variety …