Book review: Decentering Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World

This article reviews the book: “Decentering Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World”, by Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy

Climate change, forest conservation and science: A case study of New Zealand, 1860s-1920

To most of its European settlers, New Zealand was a land blessed by Providence. A temperate climate and year-round rainfall, easy availability of land and myriad work opportunities attracted many to the new colony. Climate and health figured prominently in migration considerations and many writers took delight in pointing out, as propagandist John Ward did to intending migrants in 1839, that in New Zealand: A never-failing moisture is dispersed over the country by the clouds which collect on the mountain-tops, without the occurrence of rainy seasons, beyond storms of a few days’ duration. This refreshing moisture, combined with the influence of the sea-breezes, renders the climate very favourable to the health, and development, of the human frame. And vegetation is, from the same cause, highly luxuriant, and the verdure almost perpetual

Book review: Environment and Empire

This article reviews the book: “Environment and Empire”, by William Beinart and Lotte Hughes, Oxford University Press, 2007

Book review: Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World

This article reviews the book: “Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World”, by Mark C. Elliott

Seeing the wood for the trees: empire, nation-making and forest management

Seemingly operating in an inverse relationship to the declining area of actual forest, the vast wood of publications on the topic continues to grow (thereby likely adding to the deforestation of the books’ subject). The reader can consult global surveys of world forestry, thanks to the outstanding efforts of Michael Williams and Stephen Pyne. National and micro studies also abound for those wanting information about a particular geographical area. All such studies displaying an array of different perspectives on forests: their symbolism, exchange, arrangement in gardens, art, cities—even their biological espionage (the cinchona’s ‘abduction’ from South America to South Asia, for instance)—are all covered. For some scholars, forests are objects of ecological imperialism; for others, tokens of enlightened colonialism, precursors to environmentalism

Imperial landscapes of health: Place, plants and people between India and Australia, 1800s-1900s.

In the nineteenth century, place bore immediately and urgently on questions of imperialism, race, and health. This article considers European strategies to control local environments and improve healthiness through the exchange of people, plants, ideas and garden designs between India and Australia. Migration removed Europeans from unhealthy environments, either permanently (to Australia and elsewhere) or temporarily (to hill stations in India). Trees like the eucalyptus were introduced into India to enhance European health, based on belief they drained sources of disease. I argue a crucial new understanding of the intersection between health and place in the nineteenth-century British Empire can be provided by tracing the networks through which people, plants, and ideas moved to consider the broader imperial frameworks

Global influences and local environments: Forestry and forest conservation in New Zealand, 1850s-1925.

This article examines the multiple factors that shaped the establishment of forest conservation and tree-planting in the colony of New Zealand. It presents a new perspective on forest history in New Zealand from the 1850s to the 1920s by examining the interplay of local and global factors in the development of forestry, while also suggesting future research topics in this area. Using the case-study of New Zealand, as an ancillary focus the article presents new interpretations of the exchange and introduction of forestry ideas, suggesting a need to re-examine the importance of locality in the period leading up to the emergence of ‘empire forestry’ in the twentieth century. With this in mind, it takes as one of its perspectives the work of historian of science David Livingstone, who has emphasised the importance of local factors in shaping the spread of scientific ideas. In light of Livingstone’s ideas, we demonstrate that while it makes sense to consider New Zealand forest policy both nationally and internationally, there were also significant local variations in policy according to geography, politics and other factors. These included uneven forest distribution throughout the country, slower growth-rates of indigenous trees and the impact of geography on forest removal and conservation. As well, long-standing political aversion to government interference in society restricted the role of the state in active forest management, giving greater latitude to private tree-planters. Meanwhile, New Zealand’ smaller government and population offered greater power to individuals than perhaps would be open to those living in larger societies with bigger government bureaucracies