Ecological Imperialism Chapter Summary

Alfred W. Crosby’s book Ecological Imperialism explores the beginning of European control in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and South America. The Prologue of Crosby’s book questions the domination of these Neo-Europes. Was the European success due to their organization and technology? Perhaps simple biological factors are responsible. The idea of one land mass, or Pangaea, is depicted in Crosby’s first chapter. When the mass began to split and divide into individual continents the plants, animals, and humans were separated by large bodies of water. Development was diluted into separate regions causing a strain on ecological growth. Crosby introduces the thought of the dangerous contact settlers would have on an untouched land
when he discusses the exploration after the Ice Age. Hunting until extinction, waste, and disease could rapidly change an entire ecosystem. Portuguese settlers were determined to settle Porto Santo Island in the 1400s.
An unfortunate decision to introduce rabbits into the uninhabited environment would prove to be the settler’s demise. On the other hand, Spanish invaders showed the Canaries that complete domination was possible through success in crops and livestock while unintentionally killing local peoples through the spread of diseases. Seen in chapter five, the wind played a role in European imperialism. Portuguese sailors learned to sail around the wind. Because the sailors were quick to learn the winds, trade became easier and more efficient. Even so, imperialists could not conquer all lands. Some climates were not suitable for Europeans and other lands were previously and heavily settled. The chapter, “Within Reach, Beyond Grasp”, explores the idea of European determination versus the reality of domination. The chapter titled “Weeds” illustrates another variable of European power. Crosby explains, “The weeds, like skin transplants placed over broad areas of abraded
and burned flesh, aided in healing the raw wounds that the invaders tore in the earth” (170).
Choosing to set up colonies in an ideal climate offered a great environment for European livestock to flourish. Weeds, such as oats and rye, created food for animals. Although Europeans brought horses and other farm animals that began to populate, new bacteria was introduced soon became a new problem. Disease spread throughout the Europeans in new lands.
Illness played a massive part in the development of Neo-Europes. Diseases such as smallpox, influenza, and dysentery destroyed populations of Incas, Huron, Amerindians, and Aztecs in Mexico, Peru, and the United States. This basic accident proved to be more vital to the Europeans victories than any viscous military war.
Crosby wants the reader to evaluate the haste in which imperialists dominated new nations considering that native demise may have been as simple as being in the right place with the right biology.
In his ending arguments Alfred W. Crosby explains that European victory is based on the areas they decided to takeover and the native populations’ ecosystems that resulted in destruction by the natural components of the Europeans.
The belief of the importance of the natural world depicted in Alfred W. Crosby’s book, Ecological Imperialism, is important in determining the makeup of society. I believe Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest demonstrates evidence for Crosby’s book. The idea of natural selection explores the idea that only the organisms capable of reproducing and continuing a population are healthy enough to succeed in an environment.
The Darwinism concept is true in time of war, plagues, and even economical struggle. All organisms are faced with struggles and those who are unable to prevail and survive are inevitably lacking in qualities needed to function properly in their environment. The importance of the natural world cannot be measured. The natural world is the only way to establish a
functional society. Human actions matter in Crosby’s framework because they explore the roots of the expansion of Europe’s. Europe decided to expand and continue to expand throughout several new lands. Humans brought over rabbits, domesticated plants, and animals to other continents which concluded in several indigenous people’s death. Although imperialism is a human choice, it is natural selection that determines a nation’s survival. Germs and diseases were not intentionally spread to natives. Accidentally, indigenous people were killed off, thus extending the idea of survival of the fittest. Before European expansion was the idea of exploration throughout broken Pangaea. Different species flourished in different environments. Without fail, human beings and other animals explored their surroundings creating new ecosystems and altering old ones. The natural world and the idea of human action can best be explained by referring to the Bible. After Adam and Eve had been expelled from the Garden of Eden they endured many trials. According to the Bible, populating the earth was possible due to human’s ability to adapt and the death of organisms incapable of adapting.
Although Crosby’s ideas in Ecological Imperialism are composed in a witty and sometimes sarcastic tone, I believe rational understandings of expansion are entirely exposed. I am able to relate these understandings through biblical terms and ideas, natural selection or survival of the fittest, and my own moral interpretations of how the Earth has come to be a mass of diverse species, cultures, languages, and societies.

Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism The Biological Expansion of Europe, 9001900 (Studies in Environment and History). New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.