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Book Review of

Ecological Imperialism

In his book,

Ecological Imperialism: The BiologicalExpansion of Europe, 900-1900,

Alfred W. Crosby investigates theroots of European domination over the western world. He callsthe places where early Europeans settled "Neo-Europes" withspecial emphasis on North and South America , Australia , andNew Zealand . In his prologue he ponders whether Europeansdominated their environment and other cultures because of theirtechnology, or whether the consistent “success of Europeanimperialism has a biological, [and] an ecological, component”(7). Crosby ’s thesis is that Europeans were successfulimperialists because wherever they went their agriculture andanimals thrived; and the indigenous populations and localecosystems collapsed under their biological advance.Crosby begins at the beginning, discussing the one bigcontinent, Pangaea, supposed to have existed in pre-history andthe slow development of life forms other than reptilian, inparticular

Homo

sapiens

. The break up of Pangaea (thishypothetical super-continent) caused the “the decentralizationof the process of evolution,” that is, when the land crackedapart flora and fauna were spilt between the newly createdcontinents. That continental split is the reason similarspecies are found in Europe and North America (11-12).Eventually Crosby brings the reader up to the end of the

Ice Age. Ten thousand years ago humans were exploring theislands of the Eastern Atlantic including Australia . Once onthese islands humans domesticated plants, piled up mounds ofgarbage, spread disease, and hunted animals into extinction.Normally the despoilment of indigenous flora and fauna occursover tens of thousands of years. In locations where humansarrived with mature hunting skills a sudden extinction of localplant and animal life occurred. These sudden prehistoric, orPleistocene, overkills were the first concentrated impact humanshad on virgin ecosystems.The virgin ecosystem of Porto Santo Island was thedestination of Portuguese settlers during the 1400s. PortoSanto Island was completely uninhabited and filled withuntouched flora and fauna. One Portuguese ship captain broughta mother rabbit and her babies to the island. The rabbits lovedPorto Santo and thrived in the island environment. So much sothat soon the settlers were blasting away at the rabbits in anattempt to exterminate the entire local rabbit population. Itseems the rabbits could not determine the difference between thecrops meant for human consumption and the crops meant for bunnyconsumption. The rabbits won in this instance and for a timethe settlers moved elsewhere, “defeated by their own ecologicalignorance” (75).The experience of Spanish invaders in the Canaries showed

them that no matter where they went, even if they could not out-fight their opponents, Europeans could dominate their enemiesanyway. “In all these [new] places, the newcomers would conquerthe human populations and Europeanize entire ecosystems.” TheSpanish learned from their experiences in the Canaries thattheir livestock and crops would succeed in these newenvironments; they also learned they could easily defeat thelocal natives without traditional warfare. The various“plagues” and “sleeping sicknesses,” which the Spanish called

peste

and

modorra

, killed off and weakened natives who had nonatural immunity to ailments common to the Spanish. In essence,sore throats and colds were the winning weapons of theconquerors; it was the flu that subjugated the Canaries (92-95).The unfortunate natives of the Canary Islands , theGuanches, did not survive their meeting with the Spanishsailors. These previously isolated people died rapidly fromdysentery, pneumonia, and venereal disease. According to Crosby“few experiences are as dangerous to a people's survival as thepassage from isolation to membership in the worldwide communitythat included European sailors, soldiers, and settlers" (99).When the Spanish conquered the Canaries the Guanches lost theirland and therefore their livelihood. Some Guanches joined theSpanish army and went to fight in the Americas ; the Spanishsold others into slavery. The majority of Guanches however died