Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Encyclopedia
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 is a 1986 book written by Alfred Crosby
.
descendants
. He asks why there are such large concentrations of Europeans in these lands which are so distant from Europe
. Furthermore, why have these locations been able to routinely produce large food surpluses and why are many of the countries located in these regions able to consistently be among the world's largest exporters of food?
Although Europeans as a whole were reluctant to leave the familiarity of their homeland
s to start a new life abroad until the early 19th century, the Neo-Europes experienced a great influx of European settlers between 1820 and 1930. According to Crosby, this mass emigration
was caused by conditions within Europe at the time, such as “population explosion and a resulting shortage of cultivable land, national rivalries, persecution of minorities,” alongside “the application of steam power to ocean and land travel."But what was so appealing about the Neo-Europes to warrant being selected as the primary locations for European expansion?
Crosby's explanation for the success of European imperialists is biogeographical
. Europe and the Neo-Europes all share similar latitude
s. That is, Europe and the Neo-Europes "are all completely or at least two-thirds in the temperate zones, north and south, which is to say that they have roughly similar climate
s." This is significant because the plants and animals Europeans have traditionally relied upon for sustenance tend to require a warm-to-cool climate that receives 50 to 150 centimeters of annual precipitation
to flourish. Therefore, just as farming
was able to spread from the Fertile Crescent
, east and west, without much difficulty, replacing the hunter-gatherer
lifestyle along the way, so was it able to in the Neo-Europes. But before this could take place, because the indigenous
flora
s and fauna
s in the Neo-Europes were different from those located in Europe, the foreign biota
brought to the New World
by Europeans would have to compete with the local one to survive. This would ultimately result in the complete devastation of the native floras and faunas. Crosby says: "the regions that today export more foodstuffs of European provenance – grains and meats – than any other lands on earth had no wheat, barley, rye, cattle, pigs, sheep, or goats whatsoever five hundred years ago."
Rather than give credence to claims of innate European superiority and the like, Crosby explains the relative ease with which Europeans conquered the Neo-Europes as being a product of biological
and ecological processes. According to them, one of the major contributors to European domination was disease
, which is a natural byproduct of human interaction with animals. Consequently, when Europeans shifted from being hunter/gatherers to being farmers who settled in large, stationary communities and domesticated small animals, they exposed themselves to conditions that birthed diseases that would later assist them in conquering the Neo-Europes. Some such carriers of diseases were the mice, rats, roaches, houseflies, and worms that were able to accumulate in these urban settings.
Because Europeans were living in an environment where they were in close contact with domestic animals and the germs that accompany them, the same germs that many of the devastating diseases of humans have sprung, they were constantly being subjected to disease. And though millions of lives were lost when diseases ravaged Europe during the Middle Ages
, a natural consequence of these frequent epidemics was a population that built up a resistance to these diseases. With each and every epidemic there would be some individuals who were biologically more capable of resisting the virus. After undergoing this process for a number of centuries, the entire population eventually acquired at least some minor immunological defense against diseases such as smallpox.
However, because the majority of the native populations to the Neo-Europes were still participating in hunting/gathering and did not interact with animals in the same manner as Europeans, they were never exposed to such diseases. Therefore, “When the isolation of the New World was broken . . . the American Indian
met for the first time his most hideous enemy: not the white man nor his black servant, but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath.” Because the Europeans arrived in the Neo-Europes with diseases that were absolutely new to those locations, they had an enormous advantage over the indigenous peoples
and the consequences were overwhelming.
Alfred Crosby
Alfred W. Crosby is a historian, professor and author of such books as The Columbian Exchange and Ecological Imperialism...
.
Contents
Crosby begins by pointing out that the populations of what he calls the "Neo-Europes" are primarily composed of EuropeanEuropean ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
descendants
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
. He asks why there are such large concentrations of Europeans in these lands which are so distant from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Furthermore, why have these locations been able to routinely produce large food surpluses and why are many of the countries located in these regions able to consistently be among the world's largest exporters of food?
Although Europeans as a whole were reluctant to leave the familiarity of their homeland
Homeland
A homeland is the concept of the place to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin...
s to start a new life abroad until the early 19th century, the Neo-Europes experienced a great influx of European settlers between 1820 and 1930. According to Crosby, this mass emigration
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
was caused by conditions within Europe at the time, such as “population explosion and a resulting shortage of cultivable land, national rivalries, persecution of minorities,” alongside “the application of steam power to ocean and land travel."But what was so appealing about the Neo-Europes to warrant being selected as the primary locations for European expansion?
Crosby's explanation for the success of European imperialists is biogeographical
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
. Europe and the Neo-Europes all share similar latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
s. That is, Europe and the Neo-Europes "are all completely or at least two-thirds in the temperate zones, north and south, which is to say that they have roughly similar climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
s." This is significant because the plants and animals Europeans have traditionally relied upon for sustenance tend to require a warm-to-cool climate that receives 50 to 150 centimeters of annual precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...
to flourish. Therefore, just as farming
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
was able to spread from the Fertile Crescent
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, nicknamed "The Cradle of Civilization" for the fact the first civilizations started there, is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia. The term was first used by University of Chicago...
, east and west, without much difficulty, replacing the hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
lifestyle along the way, so was it able to in the Neo-Europes. But before this could take place, because the indigenous
Indigenous (ecology)
In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...
flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
s and fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
s in the Neo-Europes were different from those located in Europe, the foreign biota
Biota (ecology)
Biota are the total collection of organisms of a geographic region or a time period, from local geographic scales and instantaneous temporal scales all the way up to whole-planet and whole-timescale spatiotemporal scales. The biota of the Earth lives in the biosphere.-See...
brought to the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
by Europeans would have to compete with the local one to survive. This would ultimately result in the complete devastation of the native floras and faunas. Crosby says: "the regions that today export more foodstuffs of European provenance – grains and meats – than any other lands on earth had no wheat, barley, rye, cattle, pigs, sheep, or goats whatsoever five hundred years ago."
Rather than give credence to claims of innate European superiority and the like, Crosby explains the relative ease with which Europeans conquered the Neo-Europes as being a product of biological
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
and ecological processes. According to them, one of the major contributors to European domination was disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
, which is a natural byproduct of human interaction with animals. Consequently, when Europeans shifted from being hunter/gatherers to being farmers who settled in large, stationary communities and domesticated small animals, they exposed themselves to conditions that birthed diseases that would later assist them in conquering the Neo-Europes. Some such carriers of diseases were the mice, rats, roaches, houseflies, and worms that were able to accumulate in these urban settings.
Because Europeans were living in an environment where they were in close contact with domestic animals and the germs that accompany them, the same germs that many of the devastating diseases of humans have sprung, they were constantly being subjected to disease. And though millions of lives were lost when diseases ravaged Europe during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, a natural consequence of these frequent epidemics was a population that built up a resistance to these diseases. With each and every epidemic there would be some individuals who were biologically more capable of resisting the virus. After undergoing this process for a number of centuries, the entire population eventually acquired at least some minor immunological defense against diseases such as smallpox.
However, because the majority of the native populations to the Neo-Europes were still participating in hunting/gathering and did not interact with animals in the same manner as Europeans, they were never exposed to such diseases. Therefore, “When the isolation of the New World was broken . . . the American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
met for the first time his most hideous enemy: not the white man nor his black servant, but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath.” Because the Europeans arrived in the Neo-Europes with diseases that were absolutely new to those locations, they had an enormous advantage over the indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
and the consequences were overwhelming.
By 3,000 years ago, give or take a millennium or so, “superman,* the human of Old WorldOld WorldThe Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....
civilization, had appeared on earth. He was not a figure with bulging muscles, nor necessarily with bulging forehead. He knew how to raise surpluses of food and fiber; he knew how to tame and exploit several species of animals; he knew how to use the wheel to spin out a thread or make a pot or move cumbersome weights; his fields were plagued with thistles and his granaries with rodents; he had sinuses that throbbed in wet weather, a recurring problem with dysenteryDysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
, and enervating burden of worms, an impressive assortment of genetic and acquired adaptations to diseases anciently endemicEndemic (epidemiology)In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic in the UK, but malaria is not...
to Old World civilizations, and an immune systemImmune systemAn immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own...
of such experience and sophistication as to make him the template for all the humans who would be tempted or obliged to follow the path he pioneered some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Publication
- Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 1986 ISBN 0-521-32009-7 (hardback), ISBN 0-521-45690-8 (paperback)
- Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 2004 ISBN 0521837324