Going Forth and Multiplying: Animal Acclimatization and Invasion

The nineteenth century saw numerous transfers and attempted transfers of animal populations, mostly as the result of the spread of European agriculture. The exchange of animal populations facilitated by the acclimatization societies that were established in Europe, North America, Australia, among other places, had more complicated meanings. Introduced aliens were often appreciated or deplored in the same terms that were applied to human migrants. Some animal acclimatizations were part of ambitious attempts to transform entire landscapes. Such transfers also broached or blurred the distinction between the domesticated and the wild. The intentional enhancement of the fauna of a region is a forceful assertion of human power. But most planned acclimatizations failed if they moved beyond the drawing board. And those that succeeded also tended to undermine complacent assumptions about human control

All the fish of the sea

Book review of: D. Graham Burnett, Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature, Princeton University Press (2007) ISBN 978-0691129501 xvi + 266 pp., $32.95

Picturing Animals in Britain 1750-1850

Book Review of D. DONALD. Picturing Animals in Britain 1750-1850. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2007. ix + 377 pp. 277 plts. $65.00; £40.00. ISBN 9780300126792

Broader Horizons?

For very good reasons, obvious every time we hear the news, it is difficult to separate the future of environmental history from the future of the environment. The long record of our species’ engagement with the global environment offers strong suggestions about the likely consequences of present actions and inactions. We are eager to share our insights with politicians and with the general public. Historians are naturally aware—probably more aware than anyone else—of the force of George Santayana’s well-known comment that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But we may be less aware of the frequent force of an alternative comment: that those who can remember the past are nevertheless condemned to repeat it, for one reason or another. Some of the attributes of good historical scholarship may actually undermine its potential as grist for the political mill. These are the same attributes that often produce problems when we try to distill complicated arguments or interpretations into an interview sound bite. (Of course, this predicament is not the exclusive preserve of environmental historians; we share it with academics in many other fields.

How Wild is Wild?

There is no obvious line or boundary that separates wild animals from those that are not wild. Instead, there are expansive grey areas, of which the most conspicuous encompass the domesticated animals that have reverted to a life outside human control, and the undomesticated animals that thrive within human environments. To examine this dynamic, this article looks at “acclimatisation societies,” which first appeared in the nineteenth century. These societies, which flourished particularly in Australia and New Zealand, sought to breed animals to make them more suitable for domestic purposes

Among Animals

The tendency to see humans as special and separate influences even practices like scientific taxonomy which explicitly place them among other animals. The animal-related scholarship that has emerged throughout the humanities and social sciences often reveals analogous tensions. Animal topics have similarly inspired historians, including environmental historians, but historical perspectives have become somewhat marginalised within the field labeled 'animal studies'

Edging into the Wild

In The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, which appeared first in 1868 and in a revised edition in 1875, Charles Darwin developed a theme to which he had accorded great rhetorical and evidentiary significance. The first chapter of On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, had included a description of artificial selection as practiced by farmers, stock breeders, and pet fanciers. Domesticated animals and plants were numerous, familiar, and available for constant observation; they provided a readily available body of evidence