This book is worlds above Merchant's first book, partly because she lowered her scope of time and place, partly because she focused her themes as well, and partly because she seems less fanatical about pushing her point. In both books I agree with her about the links between gender, nature metaphors, and ecological relations. Only in her first book does it make me want to yell. An ecological revolution is a fundamental change in the way that a society interacts with its environment. Similarly, she invokes a Marxist noion of revolutionary, changing methods of production.
Merchant tells the history of New England according to ecological revolutions.
Basically, because this was a feminist-based relationship, it was ideal. The coming of the colonists constituted the first revolution, shifting the relationship from equality to subsistence farming and land ownership. The second revolution corresponded to the entrenchment of the market economy and commodification of all natural resources. Merchant speculates on this at the end of the book, and hopes for something Disney-esque.