Suchergebnisse

The often disastrous consequences of the introduction of exotic animals into a New World environment are very clearly demonstrated by the sixteenth-century history of the Valle del Mezquital, Mexico. A rapid and profound process of environmental degradation, caused by overstocking and indiscriminate grazing of sheep in the post-conquest era, leads us to ask whether the Spanish always acted in their own long-term interests in the New World.

Ecology and Empire examines the relationship between the expansion of empire and the environmental experience of the extra-European world. For the first time it moves the debate beyond the North American frontier by comparing the experience of settler societies in Australia, South Africa and Latin America. From Australian water management and the crisis of deforestation in Latin America, to beef farming in the Transvaal, this topical book provides a broad comparative historical approach to the impact of humanity on the ecological systems on which settler societies base their livelihood