In his book, “Ecological Imperialism: the Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900”, Alfred Crosby gives a robust historical account of European imperial conquest in the places he calls Neo-Europes. He defines the Neo-Europes as places outside Europe, where European flora and fauna, including humans, supplanted native once, as a result of European colonial incursions between 900 and 1900. He differentiates the Neo-Europes from a place like South Africa, where Europeans only dominated politically, but could not transform the entire landscape to resemble that of mainland Europe. The crux of Crosby’s account is that European imperialism was successful in the Neo-Europes – North America, parts of South America, Australia, and New Zealand – in the scale that it did, not because of European military and technological might – as has been the dominant explanation – but because of ecological and geographical fortuity.
Crosby tries to answer the questions why and how people of the European race – unlike other races who are sited within given spatial gamut – are settled in various places, distant to each other, across the globe. Obviously, scores of people must have crossed the seams of Pangaea to these continents, but how? Crosby answers this question with a good history of navigation, which involves the discovery of the physical geography of the sea and an understanding of the global wind system – the key to the success of navigation. The discovery of the behavior of the oceans by the ancient explorers and the marinheiros made mass immigration possible.
With regard to how European flora and fauna came to dominate the Neo-Europes, Crosby gives credit to the climate as well as European weeds, and feral animals. Once the New World’s ecology had been disturbed, weeds of European descent shoved the native flora aside and created fertile grounds for European organisms to thrive. The argument is that weeds do well in lands that witness dramatic disturbances; hence, the grazing of European animals and the felling of trees for timber disturbed the new land – erosion. Weeds then took over these disturbed lands and stabilize them by covering up the soil against erosion and the scotching sun, creating much more fertile soil for European plants and grazing fields for European animals.
According to Crosby, the coup d'état that led to the obliteration of native populations in the Neo-Europes, and led a successful demographic take-over by Europeans, was not successful because of the brutality and superior weapons of the imperialist, but it was a concealed lethal weapon –disease – which they carried unknowingly that brought them victory. Native populations in the Neo-Europes lived in pockets of sparsely populated settlements, and largely engaged in hunting and gathering. This way of living made them vulnerable to new germs and diseases. The lack of success of European imperialism in places such as Africa and Asia, According to Crosby, was due to their resistance to European germs, and the presences of equally deadly disease, which the Europeans stood the chance of contracting. The explanation given for this is that Asians and Africans, like Europeans, lived in compact settlements with domesticated plants and animals, which exposed them on a constant basis to germs and diseases that developed from that way of living. As a result, they eventually developed some resistance to these germs and diseases. This comparison of the Neo-Europes with Africa and Asia, in my opinion, makes Crosby’s argument more plausible. If indeed, it was the superior weapons of the colonialist that led to the creation of the Neo-Europes, why was the situation different in Africa and Asia? According to Crosby, the natives of the Neo-Europes, already thinly populated, succumbed to European disease such as small pox, measles, dysentery, catarrhal jaundice, whooping cough, mumps, tonsillitis, and host of other diseases. Already weaken by diseases; the natives could not put up any meaningful resistance to European imperialism. In a nutshell, Crosby gives credit to European organisms – weed, feral animals, and pathogens – for the European imperial success in the Neo-Europes. He described these organisms, which he calls portmanteau biota, as working as a team to usurp the native biota for the eventual Europeanization of the Neo-Europes.
Crosby account does away with the usual misconception that natives lived in total harmony with their environment. Although the scale of native impact on the environment – the first wave of invasion – may have been much less than the European invasion – the second wave – they nevertheless left ecological footprints. This book also gives a background to western economic dominance over the rest of the world, as it talks about how they were able to appropriate resources from distant lands. The holistic approach Crosby adopts in his account, in my view, makes this book appealing and readable across disciplines – as a geographer, the chapter on the winds was particularly very informative to me, as I have known the direction of the global winds, but not the history behind their discovery. I also took some biology lessons from reading this book; particularly, the behavior of weeds and pathogens.
In one of the chapters, Crosby compares European weapons to those of natives, in an effort to downplay the issue of superior weapons as the main driving force of European imperialism. Although the Europeanization of the Neo-Europes had nothing to do with their superior weapons, the military might of the European colonialists cannot be belittled. What explanation will be given for European political dominance elsewhere? I believe Crosby could have still made a strong case for disease without drawing this comparison.
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Crosby uses a unique writing style and interesting perspective to ...
Reviewed in Canada on January 21, 2016
