Summary Of The Republic Of Nature By Mark Feiige

The history of the United States of America is vast and complex, encompassing thousands of events that all helped form it into a modern day superpower. When reflecting on the history of America, many historians remind us of major events that changed the course of the country's development. Many authors of these works analyze American historical events through the perspective of the people living through that event or through a 21st-Century viewpoint. However, there are fewer authors who are able to successfully illustrate more about an event than what can be visibly seen or inferred by a reader. Mark Feige, a history professor and writer, is one of the few authors who is able to uncover additional information in American history. He analyzes,

Nature is not only the trees, leaves, and, soil but, it encompasses a wide variety of things that cover both physical, mental, and even spiritual elements. Most important to Feige is that “Nature is infinitely large and varied”, omnipresent throughout the world (9). Nature can not be confined to a single presence but underlies in everything in the world. By Feige’s definition of nature “A body’s flesh blood and bone” also fall into the natural order of the world which expands nature’s reach to all of mankind. The main idea Feige stresses to the reader about nature, is that everything from a wooden farm to the American Republic is rooted in the natural order of things. Feige's goal is not only to explain how exactly American History is rooted in nature, but also to stress the presence of nature in historical events that is often overlooked or entirely ignored by other historians. Throughout the book, the reader is made clear this is Feige’s primary goal of the text, demonstrating the importance of environmental history of the United States and prove that nature’s role in America’s past is more vast and influential than what is thought. Fiege continuously explains how historical events are sometimes entirely shaped by nature and proves so by exploring the geography, topography, weather, disease spread, and other features occurring in nature and how they

However, Fiege does more than just explain how slave owners were racist, he brings to light the situation through the natural lens, allowing him to pinpoint the exact reasons some slaveowners acted in the ways they did. Fiege was able to discover a relationship hidden in slavery. There was clearly an abusive and exploitative relationship between the slavemaster and a slave, but there is also a hidden relationship in nature between the cotton crop and the slave owners. Fiege was able to uncover that it was the crop that controlled the master, and slave that was subject to the master’s attempt to control the crop as much as he/she could. Fiege discovered this by looking closely into the crop cycle, the process to grow cotton, and the labor and effort necessary in order to harvest the crop, all of which are part of the nature of cotton growing. This ability to break down the cotton system by looking through the nature of the cycle gives Fiege a much better understanding of why slave owners acted sometimes impulsive and once again brought further rational reasoning to American History. By understanding the causes of the slaveowners actions, a reader can then understand the triangular relationship between the slaveowner, cotton crop, and slave. This relationships would previously completely invisible to the reader unless examined through a lens of nature. Fiege