Brian McCammack is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Lake Forest College.
A beautifully written, smart, painstakingly researched account that
adds nuance to the growing field of African American environmental
history.
*American Historical Review*
A major work of history that brings together African-American
history and environmental studies in exciting ways.
*Journal of Interdisciplinary History*
A fascinating narrative of Black life in Chicago.
*S-USIH: Society for U.S. Intellectual History*
McCammack uncovers the untold history of African Americans’
migration to Chicago as they constructed both material and
immaterial connections to nature… His attention to the complex
landscapes that African Americans navigated is compelling.
*Black Perspectives*
The way nature helped African-Americans endure the segregated
spaces they inhabited in and around Chicago forms the subject of
Landscapes of Hope…If in the South nature was associated with
labor, for the inhabitants of the crowded tenements in Chicago,
nature increasingly became a source of leisure.
*New York Review of Books*
Anyone interested in the history of Black Chicago as well as the
history of Chicago and the natural space in which the city was
built and has existed for nearly two centuries will find the book
filled with important information and telling insights.
*Third Coast*
Deeply researched and beautifully written, Landscapes of Hope shows
how African American migrants to Chicago experienced, adapted to,
and reshaped their new world. Through a close examination of
African American life in the northern metropolis, Brian McCammack
reveals an urban environment that was far more rich, varied, and
dynamic than we had imagined, and one that was more than a mere
stage for contests over jobs, housing, and political power. Rather,
he demonstrates that African Americans’ efforts to claim urban
space and enjoy the city’s outdoor parks, beaches, playgrounds, and
nature preserves formed a vital element of their larger struggle
for freedom.
*Andrew W. Kahrl, author of The Land Was Ours*
McCammack’s book provides a literal landscaping of black modernity.
In doing so, it shines new light on Black Chicago, forcing us to
look again at things we thought we knew so well. Landscapes of Hope
brings together environmental justice and African American history
in new ways, reminding us that race must be central both to our
debates about environmental injustice and to our general
understanding of the environment itself.
*Davarian L. Baldwin, author of Chicago’s New Negroes*
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