Throughout history, people’s attitudes about the environment have changed. European and American views about the environment progressed at different rates. The seventeenth century marked the rise of the pastoral Europe. In America people were hardly comfortable with the idea. They feared the environment for it was a vast, unfamiliar place. Early Americans associated the wilderness with Native Americans, an uncivilized people.

During the eighteenth century, French-American writer, Crevecoeur, spent ten years traveling different colonies in Europe. After settling in North America for over a decade, he moved back to Europe and published a volume of essays called Letter for an American Farmer. This book was a huge success in Europe. Crevecoeur’s book is American literature; however, we must note that it is an America dreamed by the European mind. At the time, Europeans viewed the environment as pastoral, “an idealized non-urban space where humans are free from labor and live more closely in tune with the environment and each other” (PP Week 2 Day 1). While American’s thought the environment was a spiritual place that was filled with resources, but was also the source of an unfamiliar evil. Europeans yearned for the uncultivated land; whereas, American’s feared it. Europeans viewed American land as the opportunity for progress. By taking a closer look at the differences between European and Americans’ attitudes towards the environment during the eighteenth century, we can see why Crevecoeur’s novel was more popular in Europe at the time then it was in America.

In the early nineteenth century Americans’ attitudes towards the environment changed. American’s finally began to celebrate agriculture and farming like the Europeans did in the previous century. American transcendentalists, such as Emerson and Thoreau, began to see the environment as the source of potential truth. American’s slowly started to move westward while they developed the uncharted land. New ideas were formed. However, these ideas were not widely accepted. Many people questioned Emerson and Thoreau’s books at first because their ideas were so different. Today, Emerson is considered by many the most important nineteenth century American literary figure, and Thoreau is considered by many the most important nineteenth century American environmental figure.

I think that European and American attitudes towards the environment progressed at different rates because Europe’s land was developed before America. Europeans were able to appreciate the opportunities that arise from uncharted land. They were more familiar with the environment then Americans were; therefore, they had no reservations and the unknown. With the progression of Emerson and Thoreau’s ideas, Americans were able to catch up to Europeans and eventually share the same attitudes about the environment.