The Day Before America: Changing the Nature of a Continent

"The clearest portrait yet available of the dramatic shifts in ecology that swept North America during the prehistoric period and of how Native Americans adapted to them." -- Washington PostHistory and prehistory come alive in this extraordinary account of America as it was before it got its name. William H. MacLeish paints an evocative and moving portrait of the lush, miraculous New World on the eve of the Encounter - the arrival of the first Europeans, after which nothing was the same.Drawing on the work of anthropologists, geologists, and other academic experts, MacLeish roams over 18,000 years of the continent's history, exploring the awesome transformations of the ice age (and the inevitability of its return), the ecological effects of hunting and early agriculture, the astonishing variety of Indian civilizations, and the transformations of the past five hundred years.The Day Before America is a book informed by a deep commitment to the wonder and sanctity of the natural world. At bottom, it is a statement of belief in an unsentimental environmentalism -- an effort to see our world in the longest view, and to value it all the more for that."An astonishing biography of the American continent, both its natural and unnatural history…thought-provoking, authoritative, and exquisitely written." -- Thomas Lovejoy