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Summary: A tremendous account of Chicago's development.
Review: 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
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Summary: Good read, well done
Review: 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.
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Summary: Great for readers interested in history, ecology, economics
Review: 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.
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Summary: not your usual historical perspective
Review: 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.
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Summary: Pamphlets or geography?
Review: 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.
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Summary: Fascinating expanation of the growth of Chicago
Review: 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...
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Summary: Lovely prose, powerful idea
Review: 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.
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Summary: The best!
Review: This is perhaps the greatest work of non-fiction ever written. Period
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Summary: Best 'textbook' ever
Review: 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.
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