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...

Stories and phrases can powerfully shape the ways in which we experience and manage our environment. What languages have been used to characterize Australian landscapes and how have they influenced the way we see and treat our environment? This work answers this question and more, while exploring the inter-relationship between Australia's landscape and language. It covers a collection of essays whose subjects range from the Ord River in the far north-west to Antarctica in the south, from the centre to the coast, the prehistoric to the present. Its terrain is both environmental and cultural,...

Hunters and Collectors is about historical consciousness and environmental sensibilities in European Australia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It is in part a collective biography of the amateur scientists and humanists who have shaped the Australian historical imagination. Griffiths illuminates the way these avid collectors and discussants of the Australian land and its indigenous inhabitants have contributed a sense of national identity. He also shows how their activities feed into the political and environmental debates of the 1990s.