Pt. I. The elements of environmental history -- Paths toward home : Landmarks of the field in environmental history -- Air -- The living earth : History, Darwinian evolution, and the grasslands -- Fire -- Water -- Pt. II. Nature and the construction of society and identity -- Race and US environmental history -- Gender -- Class -- Body counts -- Pt. III. The nature of American culture -- From wilderness to hybrid landscapes : The cultural turn in environmental history -- American Indian environmental relations -- Cultures of nature : To ca. 1810 -- Cultures of nature : Nineteenth century -- Cultures of nature : Twentieth century -- From wilderness prophets to tool freaks : Post-World War II environmentalism -- The black box in the garden : Consumers and the environment -- Pt. IV. Contact zones : Americans conjoining the natural world -- Flora -- Fauna : A prospectus for evolutionary history -- Water development : The plot thickens -- Rick crevices of inquiry : Mining and environmental history -- Who cares about forests? How forest history matters -- Cultivating an agro-environmental history -- Oceans : Fusing the history of science and technology with environmental history -- Cities and suburbs -- Energy and transportation -- The global ecological reach of the United States : Exporting capital and importing commodities -- Food -- Pt. V. Outside of the grid : Place, borders, and scale -- Blinded by history : The geographic dimension of environment and society -- The Northeastern Pacific Basin : An environmental approach to seascapes and littoral places -- Earthlings : Evolution and place in environmental history -- "Most fruitful results" : Transborder approaches to Canadian-American environmental history -- Seeing beyond our borders : US and non-US historiographies.