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Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600 - 1860
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.
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 27, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 16, 2022
Way too much detail (475 pages) but cool to learn the history of environmentalism and it’s connection to colonialism
May 23, 2023
A classic in my area of research. It argues that environmentalism (iin the modern sense of the word) emerged from colonial encounters with tropical islands, which were perceived as sorts of utopic Edens. Grove speculates how various utopian fiction of the time, like Thomas More’s Utopia were based on colonial encounters in the tropics. Many of the earliest European writers espousing environmentalist ideas were Utopians, Physiocrats, social reformers, and medical scientists, who connected environmental destruction to the violence of colonial practices like slavery and labour exploitation.
This is an excellent book for those interested in the history of deforestation under European colonialism and how colonial scientists began recognizing the effects deforestation had on microclimates, river flow, and other aspects of the environment.
There is also an excellent chapter on Portuguese and Dutch enclosures of Indigenous plant knowledge and the establishment of botanical gardens to compile and tangibly exhibit these colonial findings.
This book would also be of immense interest to historians of science. A lot of material on theories of acclimatization and its relationship to racialized bodies as race science was emerging. And also interesting documentation of scientists and intellectuals like Buffon, Rousseau, Goethe, and Humboldt. (I think Grove lets these guys off the hook too much, but I do think there’s something to be said about their influence on later radical politics).
There is of course the issue of how presumptive it is that environmentalism began with Europeans. Grove actually argues it was colonial encounters with knowledge systems in India and China that became the foundation of what is now called environmentalist thought. He is simply working with a very narrow conception of Western environmentalism in this book, and argues that humans have always had practices of care for the land and environments in which they lived.
This is an excellent book for those interested in the history of deforestation under European colonialism and how colonial scientists began recognizing the effects deforestation had on microclimates, river flow, and other aspects of the environment.
There is also an excellent chapter on Portuguese and Dutch enclosures of Indigenous plant knowledge and the establishment of botanical gardens to compile and tangibly exhibit these colonial findings.
This book would also be of immense interest to historians of science. A lot of material on theories of acclimatization and its relationship to racialized bodies as race science was emerging. And also interesting documentation of scientists and intellectuals like Buffon, Rousseau, Goethe, and Humboldt. (I think Grove lets these guys off the hook too much, but I do think there’s something to be said about their influence on later radical politics).
There is of course the issue of how presumptive it is that environmentalism began with Europeans. Grove actually argues it was colonial encounters with knowledge systems in India and China that became the foundation of what is now called environmentalist thought. He is simply working with a very narrow conception of Western environmentalism in this book, and argues that humans have always had practices of care for the land and environments in which they lived.
September 16, 2023
While I believe Grove’s book is broadly successful in expanding the history of modern environmentalism, and exploring responses to ecological crisis in island colonies, I had significant problems with the work. First, while he claims to trace the lineage of environmentalism to Asian epistemologies, he does not explain what those epistemologies are, instead focusing almost exclusively (and exhaustively) on European intellectual history. Additionally, Grove uses terms like “conversationist” to describe men like Pierre Poivre, whose ideology encompassed the importation and propagation of foreign species in the Mauritian ecosystem. And finally, considering the extent to which the book is about colonial scientists, Grove only occasionally attempts to interrogate the moral complexity of their positions. The book has an oddly teleological quality which sometimes nullifies the depredations of colonial power (which those scientists were part of) by making them a necessary evil on the road to enlightenment.
7.5/10
7.5/10
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June 25, 2011from the library ILL
see above
FROM THE WORLDCAT COMPUTER
Edens, islands, and early empires -- Indigenous knowledge and the significance of south-west India for Portuguese and Dutch constructions of tropical nature -- The English and Dutch East India companies and the seventeenth-century environmental crisis in the colonies -- Stephen Hales and some Newtonian antecedents of climatic environmentalism, 1700-1763 -- Protecting the climate of paradise: Pierre Poivre and the conservation of Mauritius under the ancien regime -- Climate, conservation and Carib resistance: the British and the forests of the eastern Caribbean, 1760-1800 -- The beginnings of a global environmentalism: professional science, oceanic islands, and the East India Company, 1768-1838 -- 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.
see above
FROM THE WORLDCAT COMPUTER
Edens, islands, and early empires -- Indigenous knowledge and the significance of south-west India for Portuguese and Dutch constructions of tropical nature -- The English and Dutch East India companies and the seventeenth-century environmental crisis in the colonies -- Stephen Hales and some Newtonian antecedents of climatic environmentalism, 1700-1763 -- Protecting the climate of paradise: Pierre Poivre and the conservation of Mauritius under the ancien regime -- Climate, conservation and Carib resistance: the British and the forests of the eastern Caribbean, 1760-1800 -- The beginnings of a global environmentalism: professional science, oceanic islands, and the East India Company, 1768-1838 -- 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.
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December 27, 2015Source: Athabasca Books
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June 23, 2009Edward Said's Orientialism is analyzed on page 22.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews