Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies

Front Cover
Tom Griffiths, Libby Robin
University of Washington Press, 1997 - Nature - 248 pages
Ecology and Empire forged a historical partnership of great power -- and one which, particularly in the last 500 years, radically changed human and natural history across the globe. This book scrutinizes European expansion from the perspectives of the so-called colonized peripheries, the settler societies. It begins with Australia as a prism through which to consider the relations between settlers and their lands, but moves well beyond this to a range of lands of empire. It uses their distinctive ecologies and histories to shed new light on both the imperial and the settler environmental experience. Ecology and Empire also explores the way in which the science of ecology itself was an artifact of empire, drawing together the fields of imperial history and the history of science.
 

Contents

Towards an Australian history
1
Frontiers of fire Stephen J Pyne
19
The nature of Australia Eric Rolls
35
The fate of empire in low and highenergy ecosystems
46
a science of empire? Libby Robin
63
Ecology and environmentalism in the Anglo settler colonies
76
Vets viruses and environmentalism at the Cape
87
water management in Australia
102
progressive
154
Ecology imperialism and deforestation Michael Williams
169
Global developments and Latin American environments
185
environment markets and
199
the historiography
215
reflections on environmental history
229
Select Bibliography
237
Notes on Contributors
245

comparative examples
125
John Croumbie Brown
139

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information