A Not So New World - Empire and Environment in French Colonial North America

When Samuel de Champlain founded the colony of Quebec in 1608, he established elaborate gardens where he sowed French seeds he had brought with him and experimented with indigenous plants that he found in nearby fields and forests. Following Champlain's example, fellow colonists nurtured similar gardens through the Saint Lawrence Valley and Great Lakes region. In A Not-So-New World, Christopher Parsons observes how it was that French colonists began to learn about Native environments and claimed a mandate to cultivate vegetation that did not differ all that much from that which they had left behind.
Parsons demonstrates how the French experience of attempting to improve American environments supported not only the acquisition and incorporation of Native American knowledge but also the development of an emerging botanical science that focused on naming new species. Exploring the moment in which settlers, missionaries, merchants, and administrators believed in their ability to shape the environment to better resemble the country they left behind, A Not-So-New World reveals that French colonial ambitions were fueled by a vision of an ecologically sustainable empire.
The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"Sheds new light on the development of environmental knowledge about the colony, understood in an appropriately broad geographical framework." (Colin Coates, York University)
"An important new perspective on the environmental history of European expansion." (Environmental History)
"Will no doubt become standard reading for anyone interested in the exigency of indigenous ecological knowledge..." (Agricultural History Review)
Examine the role that these humble American plants played in shaping not only colonization, but also the origins of the Academy Royale Des Sciences in Paris and the foundations of Botanical Science and the Scientific method. Were it not for the discovery of American Ginseng, would New France as we know it today exist in it's current form? What of the Indigenous peoples that had deep knowledge of the uses of the native flora - were they recognized for their contributions to the developing science of Botany? How could it be that what at first seemed so similar turned out to be so different?
Take this journey through time and experience the formation of New France from the viewpoint of the plants that were so vital to the success of the effort.
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