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"What Nature Suffers to Groe" Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 16801920. By Mart A. Stewart. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. xxii, 370 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8203-1808-6.)
The natural environment, Mart A. Stewart attests, is a force to be reckoned with. Granting nature an agency of its own, Stewart argues that landscapes are the product of a "constant and intimate dialogue" between humans and the environment they inhabit. Determined to reintroduce nature into historical analysis, Stewart charts the ebb and flow of the ever-shifting landscapes that marked the intersections "between culture and nature" in the Georgia low country.
The first landscape Stewart explores is that of the British who settled Savannah in the 1730s. Nature won the upper hand in this early round of negotiations. The Georgia Trustees' insistence on small...