Edition: First printing, a trade paperback, issued simultaneously with hardcover.
New York: Oxford University Press, (2002). First edition - A book written to change the way you think about history - "an environmental history of the United States, with the author paying particular attention to how elements of nature became commodities and thereby isolated Americans from the natural world. [Steinberg comments on] everything from the old-time urban problem of horse excrementto the massive amounts of garbage produced by fast-food chains (McDonald's requires 'an area equivalent in size to more than 450,000 football fields' to supply its paper needs). He also tells what may be the first-ever natural history of the Civil War. . .Steinberg weaves it all together and makes the underappreciated point that 'it is quite simply wrong…
New York: Oxford University Press, (2002). First edition - A book written to change the way you think about history - "an environmental history of the United States, with the author paying particular attention to how elements of nature became commodities and thereby isolated Americans from the natural world. [Steinberg comments on] everything from the old-time urban problem of horse excrementto the massive amounts of garbage produced by fast-food chains (McDonald's requires 'an area equivalent in size to more than 450,000 football fields' to supply its paper needs). He also tells what may be the first-ever natural history of the Civil War. . .Steinberg weaves it all together and makes the underappreciated point that 'it is quite simply wrong to view the natural world as an unchanging backdrop to the past.' It changes all the time and it has shaped Americans in ways that few of them understand." (John Miller) Illustrated with photographs, notes, bibliography, index. xiv, 347 pp. ISBN: 0-195140109.
DOWN TO EARTH: Nature's Role in American History
