History 248 Reading Guide

The Contact of Cultures

  • Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside (1990).

Questions:

  • How does Silver combine a history of the “contact of cultures”—Native American, Euro-American, and African-American—in the South Atlantic with an environmental history of the South Atlantic forests?
  • What changes and continuities does Silver propose about the relationship between Native Americans and the South Atlantic environment?  To what extent does he describe the similarities and differences in the subsistence practices of the four language groups and cultures of Native Americans in the South Atlantic forests?
  • How does Silver’s account of Native American adaptation to and use of the environment add to our understanding of Native American culture and our understanding of the interaction between Native Americans, Euro-Americans, and African-American slaves?  What other social and cultural questions might he have considered in this environmental history?
  • What processes of change in both the environment and the relationships between peoples does Silver describe?  How does he explain those changes—what causal model does he propose?
  • What does “community” mean in Silver’s study?
  • What is his theoretical perspective?