By re-examining French geographer Pierre Gourou's work, this book highlights the significant (yet only partially understood) role he played in shaping how the tropical world was viewed during the 20th century. It does so by connecting Gourou to the idea of 'tropicality' - a discourse which constructs 'the tropics' as the West's environmental Other (in both positive and negative terms - as exotic, Edenic and bounteous, but also as backward, debilitating and pestilential). While Gourou had a towering influence over French geography, this is the first book-length study of him, as well as being...