"Environmental history deals with the reciprocal interaction between people and other elements in the natural world. This study illustrates diverse environmental themes in the history of the British empire. It concentrates initially on the material factors that shaped patterns of extraction and environmental change. But a core theme throughout is the tension between exploitation and conservation. India needed forests for its railways; Australia required pastures for its sheep. Soil erosion was seen to threaten African agriculture. Conservation aimed to preserve resources by exclusion, as in wildlife parks and forests, or to guarantee efficient use of soil and water."
"This study concludes by describing political reassertions by colonized peoples over natural resources. In a post-imperial age, they have found a new voice, reformulating ideas about nature, landscape, and heritage, and challenging - at local and global level - views about who has the right to regulate nature. Environment and Empire is an innovative synthesis, exploring environmental change, conservationist ideas, environmentally related diseases, visual images of nature, and political ecology over the long term."--Jacket.
Series Statement
Oxford history of the British Empire companion series
Uniform Title
Oxford history of the British Empire companion series
Includes bibliographical references (pages 353-382) and index.
Processing Action (note)
committed to retain
Contents
Environmental aspects of the Atlantic slave trade and Caribbean plantation -- The fur trade in Canada -- Hunting, wildlife, and imperialism in southern Africa -- Imperial travellers -- Sheep, pastures, and demography in Australia -- Forests and forestry in India -- Water, irrigation, and agrarian society in India and Egypt -- Colonial cities: environment, space, and race -- Plague and urban environments -- Tsetse and trypanosomiasis in east and central Africa -- Imperial scientists, ecology, and conservation -- Empire and the visual representation of nature -- Rubber and the environment in Malaysia -- Oil extraction in the middle east: the Kuwait experience -- Resistance to colonial conservation and resource management -- National parks and the growth of tourism -- The post-imperial urban environment -- Reassertion of indigenous environmental rights and knowledge.