James Rice earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Maryland. He is a visiting professor of history at Tufts University. Professor Rice is the author of Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson and Tales from a Revolution: Bacon's Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. He is currently writing an environmental history of Native America from the Arctic to southern Mexico and from the first human habitation of North America to the present.