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Quote by William Cronon

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Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West

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Author

William Cronon
William Cronon

William Cronon, born on September 11, 1954, is an American historian and professor. He is renowned in the field of American history and environmental history, particularly for his research on the environmental history of North America. more

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“You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us.”

“Idge says that there are moments when revolution is possible. Most of the time, we’re all – everyone, from the poorest beggar out there to the Patros on his golden throne – caught in the gears, controlled by these invisible forces, and if we act against them we’re crushed. But there are moments when things can change, when the forces balance and it’s possible for people – individual people – to make a big difference. To – realign things. Remake the world.”

“What was it like to live amidst such machines, to be familiar with them, to have them shape one's earliest intuitions about machinery: how it works, what it does, how it compares to living creatures?”