Eco-Cultural Networks and the British Empire: New Views on Environmental History

Description

19th-century British imperial expansion dramatically shaped today's globalised world. Imperialism encouraged mass migrations of people, shifting flora, fauna and commodities around the world and led to a series of radical environmental changes never before experienced in history. Eco-Cultural Networks and the British Empire explores how these networks shaped ecosystems, cultures and societies throughout the British Empire and how they were themselves transformed by local and regional conditions. This multi-authored volume begins with a rigorous theoretical analysis of the categories of 'empire' and 'imperialism'. Its chapters, written by leading scholars in the field, draw methodologically from recent studies in environmental history, post-colonial theory and the history of science. Together, these perspectives provide a comprehensive historical understanding of how the British Empire reshaped the globe during the 19th and 20th centuries. This book will be an important addition to the literature on British imperialism and global ecological change. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Author Biographies Foreword Part 1: Regional Eco-Cultural Networks 1. Introduction: Eco-Cultural Networks and the British Empire, 1837–1945 Imperial size and complexity New perspectives on empire Defining eco-cultural networks Eco-cultural commodity frontiers Notes Select bibliography 2. Climate and Empire Climatic determinism Domesticating climate and deforestation The economy of climate Climate and scientific knowledges Climate, health and tropical medicine as agents of empire? Conclusion and future trends Notes Select bibliography 3. The Chinese State and Agriculture in an Age of Global Empires, 1880–1949 Pre-nineteenth-century China and agriculture Foreign empires and experts in the late Qing New institutions of the late Qing and Republic Agricultural institutions after the revolution Conclusion Notes Select bibliography 4. Empire in a Cup: Imagining Colonial Geographies through British Tea Consumption The rise of a tea colony Reorganizing Ceylon’s landscapes of labour Showcasing contented women in bucolic gardens The malleable politics of tea Imagining the British Empire Notes Select bibliography 5. Africa, Europe and the Birds Between Them Hemispheric connections and local knowledge, 1500 – 1800 Avian geography and human geography, 1700s – 1800s Tracking birds from imperial Europe to colonial Africa Europeans become authorities on birds in Africa European humans and Palearctic avians in Africa, 1920s – 1930s African understandings of the avian link to Europe Mapping networks and narratives on nature Conclusion: Eco-cultural networks after Empire Notes Select bibliography Part 2: Local Eco-Cultural Networks 6. Peradeniya and the Plantation Raj in Nineteenth-Century Ceylon ‘ What though the spicy breezes blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle ’: The cinnamon economy The Royal Botanical Garden at Peradeniya King coffee Queen tea The world the planters made Conclusion Notes Select bibliography 7. Eco-Cultural Networks in Southern China and Colonial New Zealand: Cantonese Market Gardening and Environmental Exchange, 1860s–1910s Historiography Cantonese migration in New Zealand Cantonese landscapes Market gardening in colonial New Zealand Water technology Settler/Cantonese gardening exchanges Chinese commercial networks and exchanges Networks of belief: fengshui, gods, ancestors and ghosts Cantonese attitudes to New Zealand’s landscapes Conclusion Notes Select bibliography 8. Colonial Hunting Cultures The diversity of imperial hunting Game laws, class and hunting Local peoples and imperial exchanges Imperial commodity demand: Fashion and the bird trade Conclusion Notes Select bibliography 9. Game of Empires: Hunting in Treaty-Port China, 1870–1940 Expatriate hunting and ‘ornamentalism’ in China The sporting prospects of Hong Kong Shooting in Treaty-Port China Oppositional knowledge Conclusion: Bagging nature Notes Select bibliography 10. Experiments, Environments, and Networks: Commercial Rice Cultivation in South-Eastern Australia, 1900–1945 The Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area Rice experiments: Takasuka and experiment farms Californian exchanges Creating a market The Second World War Notes Select bibliography 11. Animals and Urban Environments: Managing Domestic Animals in Nineteenth-Century Winnipeg Early Winnipeg’s domestic animal population Nineteenth-century animal by-laws Scavenging and public health Public markets Pounds and trespass Conclusion Notes Select bibliography Index