As the effects of climate change loom ever larger in our present and future, casting an eye back through time to view how early modern and early American peoples interacted with the natural world can be fruitful. Indeed, ever since historian William Cronon published his path breaking work, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, in 1983, scholars have been examining how Indigenous, African, and European peoples used the animals, lands, forests, and waterways of early America, and how they experimented to extract food and other commodities. Their works remind us that exploitation of natural resources, particularly for profit, is not a new phenomenon; nor are discursive practices that naturalize certain peoples, cultures, or bodies and privilege them over others. These are practices that went hand-in-hand with European exploration, conquest, and colonization. The articles in this index were chosen with keywords such as “natural history,” “climate,” and “environment.” They represent the continuing scholarly interest in exploring how interactions between people and the natural world influenced inter-cultural relationships, trade, and mobility, and how they framed new aesthetic ideals and sensibilities.
