An important book that addresses some of the key debates in geography today. Opens a rich and diversified research agenda that will most certainly generate fertile partnerships between physical and human geographers.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Challenging and valuable. . . . I highly recommend this book to geographers of Latin American landscape change and especially to nongeographers interested in colonialism and landscape.

Geographical Review

The author is not only skilled and assiduous in the analysis of the relevant historical literature-he fairly scythes through primary and secondary sources-but he also does his own paleoecology. He is thus excellently equipped to make environmental historical analyses that sweep across inherited epochs and constructs, which he does fearless of controversy, ready to theorize. And his maps are delectable.

Alfred Siemens, University of British Columbia