In the late 1800s American entrepreneurs became participants in the
400-year history of European economic and ecological hegemony in
the tropics. Beginning as buyers in the tropical ports of the
Atlantic and Pacific, they evolved into land speculators,
controlling and managing the areas where tropical crops were grown
for carefully fostered consumer markets at home. As corporate
agro-industry emerged, the speculators took direct control of the
ecological destinies of many tropical lands. Supported by the U.S.
government's diplomatic and military protection, they migrated and
built private empires in the Caribbean, Central and South America,
the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and West Africa.
Yankee investors and plantation managers mobilized engineers,
agronomists, and loggers to undertake what they called the
"Conquest of the Tropics," claiming to bring civilization to
benighted peoples and cultivation to unproductive nature. In
competitive cooperation with local landed and political elites,
they not only cleared natural forests but also displaced multicrop
tribal and peasant lands with monocrop export plantations rooted in
private property regimes.
This book is a rich history of the transformation of the tropics in
modern times, pointing ultimately to the declining biodiversity
that has resulted from the domestication of widely varied natural
systems. Richard P. Tucker graphically illustrates his study with
six major crops, each a virtual empire in itself--sugar, bananas,
coffee, rubber, beef, and timber. He concludes that as long as
corporate-dominated free trade is ascendant, paying little heed to
its long-term ecological consequences, the health of the tropical
world is gravely endangered.
General
| Imprint: |
University of California Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Release date: |
November 2000 |
| First published: |
November 2000 |
| Authors: |
Richard P. Tucker
|
| Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 41mm (L x W x T) |
| Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
| Pages: |
564 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-520-22087-4 |
| Categories: |
Books >
Earth & environment >
The environment >
General
Promotions
|
| LSN: |
0-520-22087-0 |
| Barcode: |
9780520220874 |
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