William Cronon challenges many of the conventions of both urban and western history in this pathbreaking book, and does so with unusual intelligence and elegance. More important, he helps lay the groundwork for a vital new field of scholarship: the history of the natural environment and its relationship to human society.--Alan Brinkley, Columbia University

This book is the story of Chicago's progress in the 19th century, the rough seduction of the hinterland, and how at its zenith the city ruled the commercial life of a vast inland region more completely and ruthlessly and profitably than any czar ruled Russia...A marvelous book.--Ward Just "Chicago Tribune"

Thoroughly original...Illuminating...Brilliant.--Donald L. Miller "New York Times Book Review"

No one has ever written a better book about a city...No one has written about Chicago with more power, clarity and intelligence than Cronon.--Kenneth T. Jackson "Boston Globe"

An intoxicating piece of scholarship and enterprise...It is really a work of biography: a look at the life of Chicago.--David Shribman "Wall Street Journal"

Nature's Metropolis is that rare historical work which treats nature and the moral force we derive from it seriously...The roots of the modern environmental predicament are plainly visible in the economic dynamism that brought about the rise of Chicago in the mid-nineteenth century, which is a captivating story in its own right.--Verlyn Klinkenborg "The New Yorker"