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Title: Heavy handed thesis ignores the majority of North American environmental history
Review: With his characterization of the entire American ecosystem as a garden carefully engineered and managed by Indians, Mann leaves out the environmental history of most of the North American continent. The dense forests of thousand year old redwoods and sitka spruce which greeted European immigrants in the Pacific Northwest were not products of American Indian slash and burn, or other agricultural management techniques. It seems that by ignoring the greater portion of North American environmental history during his narrative, it was easier for Mann to make his somewhat remedial, politically motivated point.
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