There are going to be other reviewers who can provide more erudite reviews-- reviews better grounded in the study of cities or economic history. I am nothing more than an average reader who enjoys non-fiction.

First of all, potential readers should be aware that this is an economic history. It follows flows of goods and capital rather than following the lives and careers of the men and women of Chicago. I knew what to expect, but for people looking for a more standard history of Chicago this may make Nature's Metropolis difficult to engage.

I really enjoyed reading the book. It stretched my understanding of the economic growth of cities and raised issues that I had not considered about the role of the city *in* nature (not as opposed to nature). The examination of elements that made Chicago into both a city and The City was fascinating. The chapters tracing grain, lumber and meat as goods were clearly written and underscored the central theses.

I guess it goes without saying that Nature's Metropolis is far from a light read, but that does not make it less rewarding. As someone who does not have a background in history, I only longingly wished that the bibliography had been annotated to help support further reading.

There are going to be other reviewers who can provide more erudite reviews-- reviews better grounded in the study of cities or economic history. I am nothing more than an average reader who enjoys non-fiction.



First of all, potential readers should be aware that this is an econonomic history. It follows flows of goods and capital rather than following the lives and careers of the men and women of Chicago. I knew what to expect, but for people looking for a more standard history of Chicago this may make Nature's Metropolis difficult to engage.



I really enjoyed reading the book. It stretched my understanding of the economic growth of cities and raised issues that I had not considered about the role of the city *in* nature (not as opposed to nature). The examination of elements that made Chicago into both a city and The City was fascinating. The chapters tracing grain, lumber and meat as goods were clearly written and underscored the central theses.



I guess it goes without saying that Nature's Metropolis is far from a light read, but that does not make it less rewarding. As someone who does not have a background in history, I only longingly wished that the bibliography had been annotated to help support further reading.

There are going to be other reviewers who can provide more erudite reviews-- reviews better grounded in the study of cities or economic history. I am nothing more than an average reader who enjoys non-fiction.

First of all, potential readers should be aware that this is an economic history. It follows flows of goods and capital rather than following the lives and careers of the men and women of Chicago. I knew what to expect, but for people looking for a more standard history of Chicago this may make Nature's Metropolis difficult to engage.

I really enjoyed reading the book. It stretched my understanding of the economic growth of cities and raised issues that I had not considered about the role of the city *in* nature (not as opposed to nature). The examination of elements that made Chicago into both a city and The City was fascinating. The chapters tracing grain, lumber and meat as goods were clearly written and underscored the central theses.

I guess it goes without saying that Nature's Metropolis is far from a light read, but that does not make it less rewarding. As someone who does not have a background in history, I only longingly wished that the bibliography had been annotated to help support further reading.

This is a very distinctive, well researched and argued book about how Chicago developed. Starting with a standard model of Urban Economics - the von Thunen model of central place theory- the author quickly moves beyond it. The distinctive contribution of his book is Cronon's emphasis on how the roots of Chicago's remarkable development lay in the "soil" of its surrounding hinterlands. He carries this argument further by examining how the transportation and communication revolutions of the 19th century - the railroad and the telegraph - created unique advanatages for Chicago relative to other competitive metropolitan areas (such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee) and finally, how in turn, new metropolitan areas (such as KC, Omaha) arose to steal aways Chicago's dominance.

As other reviewers have noted, the book offers really fascinating, detailed discussions and original research on - for example - the grain and lumber industries as well as capital flows in the midwestern US creatively using court records on corporate failures to track the flow of investments.

This books contains a rich lode of intellectual wealth and it is well worth the effort to mine it.

This is a very distinctive, well researched and argued book about how Chicago developed. Starting with a standard model of Urban Economics - the von Thunen model of central place theory- the author quickly moves beyond it. The distinctive contribution of his book is Cronon's emphasis on how the roots of Chicago's remarkable development lay in the "soil" of its surrounding hinterlands. He carries this argument further by examining how the transportation and communication revolutions of the 19th century - the railroad and the telegraph - created unique advanatages for Chicago relative to other competitive metropolitan areas (such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee) and finally, how in turn, new metropolitan areas (such as KC, Omaha) arose to steal aways Chicago's dominance.

As other reviewers have noted, the book offers really fascinating, detailed discussions and original research on - for example - the grain and lumber industries as well as capital flows in the midwestern US creatively using court records on corporate failures to track the flow of investments.

This books contains a rich lode of intellectual wealth and it is well worth the effort to mine it.

Been dying to read this book for at least six months. Finally found it at a used book store for six bucks! Huzzah!

Having now read the book, I probably would have shelled out for it new or used at the 10+ bucks it commands here on Amazon. The 18 reviews below indicates that this is a fairly popular work. That's more then three times the reviews of the other history books I've checked out on Amazon.

Since the other reviews are substantial, I won't comment much, except to say that while several reviewers have commented on the role of "first" and "second" nature in this book, I didn't see anybody mentioning his use of "Central Place Theory", which was apparently developed by German theorists in the 1800's. He also doesn't discuss Lewis Mumford at all, even though he cites to that author in the bibliography.

I thought this book made an interesting contrast with "Imperial San Francisco", another book about the development of a western city. I was hoping Cronon would include more information about the "flow of capital" between Chicago and the FAR west, rather then focusing so intently on Chicago's immediate hinterland.

Cronon chose to focus on a description of the processes which led to the creation of Chicago. It might have been interesting to look at the ways in which the interests of wealthy individuals tracked across various industries and time. A point made in "Industrial San Francisco" was that the oligarch's who made money in mining gradually "cleansed" their money through the purchase of utilities and media firms(newspapers). Did something similar occur in Chicago? I suspect so, but Cronon's treatment of the newspaper/media industry is largely descriptive.

Been dying to read this book for at least six months. Finally found it at a used book store for six bucks! Huzzah!

Having now read the book, I probably would have shelled out for it new or used at the 10+ bucks it commands here on Amazon. The 18 reviews below indicates that this is a fairly popular work. That's more then three times the reviews of the other history books I've checked out on Amazon.

Since the other reviews are substantial, I won't comment much, except to say that while several reviewers have commented on the role of "first" and "second" nature in this book, I didn't see anybody mentioning his use of "Central Place Theory", which was apparently developed by German theorists in the 1800's. He also doesn't discuss Lewis Mumford at all, even though he cites to that author in the bibliography.

I thought this book made an interesting contrast with "Imperial San Francisco", another book about the development of a western city. I was hoping Cronon would include more information about the "flow of capital" between Chicago and the FAR west, rather then focusing so intently on Chicago's immediate hinterland.

Cronon chose to focus on a description of the processes which led to the creation of Chicago. It might have been interesting to look at the ways in which the interests of wealthy individuals tracked across various industries and time. A point made in "Industrial San Francisco" was that the oligarch's who made money in mining gradually "cleansed" their money through the purchase of utilities and media firms(newspapers). Did something similar occur in Chicago? I suspect so, but Cronon's treatment of the newspaper/media industry is largely descriptive.

I remember, many years ago, standing next to an Illinois corn field at the intersection 212th and Cicero and wondering how Chicago's street grid system had worked its way so far into the country side. What in the world did this corn field and the intersection of State and Madison in downtown Chicago have to do with each other? This book explained it to me along the economic history of Chicago -- a history that went a lot farther in explaining the citys size, influence, and even existence than the biographies Marshal Field, Potter Palmer, the Colonel, and the rest.

Great read.

This was the best book I've ever had assigned in a class. It was part of the assigned readings for a Princeton University course "History of the American West". Perhaps the context of the class helped to make the book, but it is still well written and seems to strike a good balance between a historical view and an economic view of the story it tells.

I have a few criticisms of Nature's Metropolis, though overall I did enjoy this book quite a bit. First, I found the book curiously lacking people, that is, a human texture. While Cronon does occasionally report the descriptions by individuals of Chicago, railroads, farming, etc., there is a hollowness to his study in that detailed accounts of working conditions, opposition to speculation, and the abuses of the railroads (just to name a few) are lacking. This is not a "history from the bottom up" type of study, and my impression is that more of this would help make Nature's Metropolis a "braided narrative."
Cronon argues, "this book is...an effort to understand the city's place in nature." (8) His thesis that the line between city and country is an abstraction and that what was constructed by man at Chicago was a "second nature" is contrived, and ultimately unconvincing. Cronon argues that the perceived differences between Chicago and the Great West is a "false boundary," a premise I find absurd. While railroads had advantages over wagon and sail, these advantages were part of human constructs, not "nature" as Cronon implies on page 72. "The railroads centered on Chicago," he states (67) "not because nature ordained that they had to do so...but because investors and everyone else who acted on booster theories proclaimed that they should do so." That is not nature, despite Cronon's strained attempts to imply it. This (an the numerous other examples he notes throughout the text) manufactured "nature" of Cronon's is a major distraction to an otherwise satisfying study.

"Nature's Metropolis" is first, and foremost a naartive about the rise of Chicago in the 19th century. Being very similar in tone to the author's first book "Changes in the Land" (1983). Cronon seeks to establish in "Nature's Metropolis" that any understanding of the American west can not truly be comprehended unless one looks at the dominant role that Chicago played in ordering the landscape between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. By arguing that the two (city and countryside) are linked, Cronon is directly refuting the Frontier Thesis of Fredick jackson Turner - which held that the frontier (countryside) existed in isolation of the city. This is then the major premise of the book; that human actions are very much determined by the landscape.

In building his case Cronon presents some excellent case studies of the Rail+Canal, wheat, forestry and meat packing industries in Chicago, and how they helped to turn the city into a first-rank metropolitan centre. Chapter #3 on wheat is especially interesting as Cronon describes how the Board of Trade revolutionized the exchange of grain by turning the physical crop into an abstract commodity that could be easily traded amongst merchants, traders and farmers. Central to this was of course the implementation of a standardized grading system.

A final note, one of the more intriguing aspects of the book was Cronon's use of the terms "first" and "second nature". These are two concepts which he explains in the preface are derived from Hegelian and Marxist interpretations of nature - yet he does not give the reader too much more of an insight. Essentially, "first nature" is a realm where species (be they plant, animal, human) succeeded and failed mainly because of circumstances encountered within their immediate habitats. "Second nature" (such as a city like Chicago and all of its built-up environs) would put economic pressures on species hundreds of miles away - effectively altering the landscapes of these places. Unfortunately, in discussions about Cronon's book these two concepts do not really generate much debate. I find them to be very fascinating and wish they had been better explained in the book. If you too are intersted in these concepts of "first" and "second nature" I think the recent book by Steven Stoll "The Fruits of Natural Advantage" (1998) would be a good place to start - it is next up on my reading list!

If you prefer your history to be the story of human beings, their struggles, and their triumphs, this book will disappoint. Cronon presents the history of Chicago and the midwest as the history of commodities and trade. It's an interesting approach, and he shows the global implications of many of his insights-- he correctly observes that much of what he demonstrates with Chicago could also be shown with other cities as well. Some of his insights didn't strike me as being nearly as unexpected as he seems to think they are (the interdependence on commodities wholesalers and their markets, for example), but most of his ideas are well-argued and supported. Ultimately this is not so much about Chicago's history as it is about using Chicago and the west as a case study to show how cities grow, and how city and country are inter-related.

Grain, beef, and lumber. Chicago became what it became not only because of its location on the Great Lakes/railroad sytem, but also because of these resources. This book shows how much nature influences human efforts. It has few personalities because the exploitation of the resources was inevitable. This is a great book for a greater understanding of how nature drives humanity.

The author's easy natural style makes this book a real pleasure to read. His thesis is so intriguing that the book difficult to put down. The explanation of the interaction of town and country, and how each organizes the other, is fascinating. The book contains a careful balance between theory and rich details about the industries that drove Chicago's growth -rail, timber, and meat packing...

Nature's Metropolis is a book written under the spell of French poststructuralist theory--although you'd never know it if you read, as people used to say, "straight." This is easily discerned by knowledgeable people by virtue of the fact that Cronon spends so much time talking about the importance of pamphlets and other forms of propaganda used by boosters of Chicago. In essence (sic), Cronon's argument is that pamphlets had a great deal more to do with why Chicago is what it is than the fact that it is located on a river flowing into the Great Lakes, a river that also happens to provide a portage to the Mississipi. Cronon's argument is the standard humanities argument these days--theories lie behind everything, "It's not natural," etc.--but though the argument has the academic stamp of approval (and Cronon is now the Jackson professor of history at the University of Wisconsin) it still sounds a bit much, to say the least, to say that real estate agents are much more important than the actual real estate in land deals. On the other hand, of course, the old story IS a bit fishy, if one listens to Cronon's tale, since the Chicago River really isn't much of a river, nor is the portage to the Miss. River all that convenient. Still, whatever one thinks about the founding of Chicago or other cities, what's important about this book is that it shows how French theories are becoming part of the very fabric of the American academy, so that the sort of book in which one used to expect to find dry and sober economic analysis (which one will also find here) now has the hint of Parisian perfume. This is, make no mistake, an important development--a joke that is even funnier if one considers the subject of the book: Chicago, perhaps the very citadel of capitalism. After all, it seems to be no accident that not only does the University of Chicago have a lock on Nobels in economics, but also that it is the lair of that Dark Lord of Law and Economics--Judge (Darth) Richard Posner. In that sense, then, maybe Cronon's book isn't so silly after all.

History and the enviroment are the subject of this eye-opening work, which is one of the most exciting works in the new field of enviromental history. Cronon is an author who makes reading a joy and brings complicated concepts to light. A must-read for anyone interested in the new frontiers of historiography.

I bought this book during a business trip to Chicago. Late on a clear summers day I started reading as we flew west high above Cronon's America. I was still reading at L.A. and I finished it somewhere over the South Pacific as we were close to home. Its really economic geography/history with maps. Some of the analysis is dated and suggests an historian playing in an unfamiliar field e.g. Cronon spends some time developing the von Thunen rings theory of urban growth. This was considered to be a deterministic and flawed theory by my grad. geography teachers 20yrs ago . But, a book I enjoyed and reopened for me an interest in landscape transformation and urban history. You should also try Fernand Braudel's books the "commerce and civilisation" series of 3 - wonderful readable stuff on a bigger geographic scale but in a similar vein.

This is not your typical history book. The lucid, flowing prose makes reading a pleasure. What stays with you, however, is the power of Cronon's idea. He re-thinks the usual assumptions about western expansion and the supposed conflict between urban and rural ways of life. He shows, effectively and evocatively, how city and countryside create each other and depend on each other. A lovely book - I have given it to many people as a gift.

City Planners, Urban Economists, Futurists, and others whoponder the evolution of cities must read this engaging study ofChicago's development. William Cronon's exceptionally well-researched and presented story is an arresting account of Chicago's evolution from a rough frontier trading post to a world-class metropolis. As the connecting point between the industrial/financial East and the agricultural/resource-based West, Chicago capitalized on its physical location as a transportation nexus, and prospered. Cronon's portrayal of the large and small influences that led to Chicago's success is intriguing to those of us who search for similar clues in contemporary situtions, and who wonder which of our current outposts will be the Chicago of the 21st century!

This is perhaps the greatest work of non-fiction ever written. Period

Few historians have William Cronon's breadth of scope and understanding. While most other historians focus on one time period and often refuse to make parallels between history and the present, Cronon manages to provide a highly detailed study of Chicago and its hinterland in the nineteenth century while also drawing parallels to the world of the late twentieth. If you read only one history book this year, read this one.

I don't know how I lived in Chicago for two years without reading this book. Cronon answers the question of why Chicago grew to become the country's central metropolis in the Nineteenth Century. The answer is complicated, and is not simply a function of Chicago's location at the southwest corner of the Great Lakes. Cronon discusses trade in grain, timber and beef, the rise of the railroads, Chicago's competition with St. Louis, and the World's Fair. All of these subjects are presented in impressive but accessible detail. This is impressive history.

I don't know how I lived in Chicago for two years without reading this book. Cronon answers the question of why Chicago grew to become the country's central metropolis in the Nineteenth Century. The answer is complicated, and is not simply a function of Chicago's location at the southwest corner of the Great Lakes. Cronon discusses trade in grain, timber and beef, the rise of the railroads, Chicago's competition with St. Louis, and the World's Fair. All of these subjects are presented in impressive but accessible detail. This is impressive history