Table of Contents

Introduction: Ecology, Power, and Imperialism
PART I: A World of Goods: The Ecology of Colonial Extraction
1: The Ecology of Cotton: Environment, Labour, and Empire
2: Bittersweet Harvest: The Colonial Cocoa Boom and the Tropical Forest Frontier
3: Colonialism, Rubber, and the Rainforest
4: Subterranean Frontier: Tin Mining, Empire, and Environment in Southeast Asia
5: Peripheral Centres: Copper Mining and Colonized Environments in Central Africa
6: Oil, Empire, and Environment
PART II: Conservation, Improvement, and Environmental Management in the Colonies
7: Tropical Nature in Trust: The Politics of Colonial Conservation
8: Forests, Ecology, and Power in the Tropical Colonies
9: Cultivating the Colonies: Agriculture, Development, and Environment
PART III: Acceleration, Decline, and Aftermath
10: Progress and Hubris: The Political Ecology of Late Colonial Development
11: Beyond Colonialism: Tropical Environments and the Legacies of Empire
Conclusion

About the Author

Corey Ross is Professor of Modern History at the University of Birmingham and the author of several books on the history of mass media and popular culture, heritage and ancestral pasts, and everyday life under state socialism, with a particular focus on Germany. Since arriving at Birmingham in 1998, he has held an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the Freie Universität Berlin, a J. Walter Thompson Fellowship at Duke University, a guest professorship at the
Université Paris-II, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. His primary research interests are in global environmental history, modern imperialism,
and modern European social and cultural history.

Reviews

An impressive tour de force of colonial environmental history ... A really impressive book on how ecological resources were claimed, used and spoiled by colonial agents, from individuals to states.
*Maurits W. Ertsen, Agricultural History Review*

...imperial historians will find the environmental framework, especially when so broadly applied, a valuable way to interpret the impact of Europe's various empires on the modern world. Ross exposes similarities and highlights differences between differing imperial approaches and those of the indigenous populations, allowing for an incredibly nuanced presentation of shared ideas and practices applied to commodities across empires, concluding with their legacies. Environmental historians too will find much of interest in Ross's approach to explaining how the latter stages of empire helped influence future environmental development policy and thinking.
*Rob Joy, University of Southampton, Journal of Contemporary History*

Ross is a fine writer who lays out his analyses in lucid narratives
*Roger L. Albin, University of Michigan, Journal of World History*

brilliant
*Adam Rome, Summer Reads 2018, Nature*

Ross's Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire is a genuine tour de force that will surely be a landmark book in both environmental history and imperial history. It takes a synthetic, multi-empire approach in the period since the 1860s, surveying the ecological contexts and consequences of colonial economies as well as growing imperial interest in resource conservation. Ross focuses on the tropical regions of Asia and Africa, taking the reader from the tin mines of Malaya to the cocoa plantations of West Africa with many stops in between. Ross's prose is agreeable and his arguments clear. His research in the specialist literature and published primary sources in English, French, Dutch, and German is thorough. Altogether a superb achievement and a great service to historians and other lovers of history.
*J.R. McNeill, Georgetown University*

it is easy to envision Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire fitting comfortably into a range of teaching scenarios, from advanced undergraduate courses to graduate seminars on environmental history, world history, and empire ... It is a tremendous pleasure to review a masterwork. Its author should be heartily commended for producing such a wide-ranging, readable, and engaging book. I look forward to assigning Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire to many current and future students.
*Edward D. Melillo, American Historical Review*

In this work, students will find an excellent bibliography of 1,106 entries, 1,544 footnotes, and superb reviews of the history of cotton, chocolate (cocoa), rubber, tin, copper, and oil. The book is highly readable with insights throughout for social scientists, conservation biologists, agronomists, and ecologists ... Recommended.
*CHOICE*