Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860

ISBN-13: 9780521565134 / Angielski / Miękka / 1996 / 560 str.

Richard H. Grove; Donald Worster; Alfred W. Crosby

Opis

Green Imperialism is the first book to document the origins and early history of environmentalism, concentrating especially on its hitherto unexplained colonial and global aspects. It highlights the significance of Utopian, Physiocratic, and medical thinking in the history of environmentalist ideas. The book shows how the new critique of the colonial impact on the environment depended on the emergence of a coterie of professional scientists, and demonstrates both the importance of the oceanic island "Eden" as a vehicle for new conceptions of nature and the significance of colonial island environments in stimulating conservationist notions.

Recenzje

'Green Imperialism is a succinct yet richly nuanced study of the genealogy of European environmentalism …'. Economic History Review

Spis treści

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Edens, islands and early empires; 2. Indigenous knowledge and the significance of South-West India for Portuguese and Dutch constructions of tropical nature; 3. The English and Dutch East India companies and the seventeenth-century environmental crisis in the colonies; 4. Stephen Hales and some Newtonian antecedents of climatic environmentalism, 1700–1763; 5. Protecting the climate of paradise: Pierre Poivre and the conservation of Mauritius under the ancien regime; 6. Climate, conservation and Carib resistance: the British and the forests of the Eastern Caribbean, 1760–1800; 7. The beginnings of global environmentalism: professional science, oceanic islands and the East India Company, 1768–1838; 8. Diagnosing crisis: the East India Company medical services and the emergence of state conservationism in India, 1760–1857; Conclusion: the colonial state and the origins of western environmentalism; Select bibliography, Index.