land degradation & development
Land Degrad. Develop. 20: 347–348 (2009)
BOOK REVIEW
RESURRECTING THE GRANARY OF ROME: ENVIRON-
MENTAL HISTORY AND FRENCH COLONIAL EXPAN-
SION IN NORTH AFRICA, D. K. Davis. Ohio University
Press and Swallow Press, Ohio, USA, 2007. ISBN 13: 978-0-
8214-1751-5 (hardback), US $47.96, xi þ 312 pp.
In this rigorously researched book, Davis argues that French
colonisation of the Maghreb (the three North African
countries of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) was motivated
and rationalised by a ‘declensionist environmental narra-
tive’; a narrative that attributed environmental decline to the
land use practices of the ‘native’ people of North Africa.
Davis begins by questioning the often unquestioned
environmental history of North Africa: the ‘sad tale of
deforestation and desertification that has spanned much of
the past two millennia’ (p. 1). She asserts that this
environmental history has been constructed and reworked
over time by ‘French colonial scientists, administrators,
military men and settlers’ (p. 1).
Davis responds to William Cronon’s call for telling
‘stories about stories about nature’. The story she tells
reveals the power of persistent and erroneous narratives
about nature and social-nature interactions. In the context of
the Maghreb, such stories have provided the justification for
colonisation. She argues that the colonial environmental
narrative of North Africa served three primary functions:
appropriation of land and resources; social control (includ-
ing provision of labour); and transformation of subsistence
production into commodity production.
One of her explicit purposes is to expose and ameliorate
the exploitation of less powerful people in the name of
environmental protection. But she argues that the declen-
sionist environmental narrative has not only systematically
disadvantaged North African peoples, but has also led to
profound changes in the landscape, some of which have
produced land degradation that continues to plague the
Maghreb today. In this way her book has much to say, not
only about the history of French colonisation of North
Africa, but also about contemporary land use policy and
practice, race relations, indigenous land rights and the power
of dominant ideas about nature.
The book benefits from interdisciplinary research,
incorporating geography (specifically political ecology),
North African environmental history, and French colonial studies.
It will be of interest to at least three audiences including
those concerned with the environmental history of North
Africa, French colonialism, and the broader question of the
power of environmental knowledge and ideas about nature.
Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Through six chapters Davis traces the emergence and
development of the French colonial declensionist environ-
mental narrative of North Africa that first rationalised and
then shaped the colonisation of the Maghreb. The book
reveals the construction of the story about nature in the
Maghreb: a story of a lush and fertile land supported by
Roman practices, which lapsed into decay under the
‘primitive’ techniques of the ‘lazy natives’. Prior to colonial
settlement this narrative was primarily framed in terms of
neglect and missed opportunity, and provided a justification
for French colonisation and appropriation of land. Within
two decades of French rule of the Maghreb the narrative had
developed into one that blamed indigenous people, and
particularly nomadic herders, for the deforestation and
degradation of what had been the fertile ‘granary of Rome’.
The declensionist narrative developed from ‘a tale of the
untapped fertility of the Algerian soil, wasted by the
improvidence of the ‘‘natives’’’, to ‘an accusation of the ruin
of the land by the hordes of Arab nomads and their herds that
for centuries had destroyed the environment’ (p. 88).
As the French government committed to colonisation and
settlement, it focused on how best to administer the territory.
European scientific and learned ideas about the environment,
especially forests, bore directly on the narrative and shaped
the transformation of agriculture and land use in North
Africa. The narrative triumphed with the settlers: it was
wielded as a tool for implementing change, such as
instituting private property, sedentarising nomads, and
promoting the planting of eucalyptus, introduced from
Australia and thought to bring wealth and rain to Algeria.
Finally the narrative was formalised and institutionalised as
the environmental history of the Maghreb. According to
Davis, this is one of the most important legacies of the
colonial period, because it continues to influence environ-
mental and agricultural policy today.
In her concluding chapter Davis briefly discusses the contem-
porary implications of the narrative. Despite early evidence that
it was supported by unreliable accounts of former fertility, and
that much environmental decline actually took place as a direct
result of colonial actions, the narrative has been perpetuated
throughout the post-colonial period through influential fora such
as forestry manuals, histories, ecological studies and French
military documents. These continue to be widely read, and
have laid the foundation for education, research and policy
formation. Colonial narratives are used by governments and
international organisations, such as the United Nations, to
justify and plan development projects in the region.
The book draws on rigorous archival research. It provides
an extremely detailed discussion of the subtle developments
348 BOOK REVIEW
of the colonial environmental narrative, with extensive
footnotes that expand an already thorough account. As a
result, it is possibly somewhat repetitive in places. Headings
and signposts do not always help guide the reader through
the text and the subtleties of the argument. For the reader
whose interest is not the details of French colonisation of the
Maghreb and the development of the colonial environmen-
tal narrative, but the broader significance of Davis’
argument, it is a long read. But this is challenging ground
to tread. Colonial and post-colonial studies have been
criticised for focusing too much on the discursive at the
expense of the material, and for over-generalising at the
expense of the specific context. Davis provides a detailed
study of the specific forms and variety of French colonisation
of North Africa; the role of narrative, laws, and bureaucratic,
corporate and settlement colonialism. This book provides a
remedy for the criticism of over-generalisation.
‘Resurrecting the granary of Rome’ traces the develop-
ment of ideas about nature in Europe, and their imposition
elsewhere. For Davis the focus is the Maghreb, but her
argument has relevance beyond the case study. Her work
contributes to the discourse of the ways in which
Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
environmental ideas are imposed onto other landscapes
through the varied processes of colonialism, and how efforts
to transform nature are an essential part of the colonial
project. Davis’ argument is important in the context of
colonial studies, histories of North Africa, and under-
standings of the relationships between nature, culture and
colonial power. But beyond this, she makes significant links
between imperial policy and thinking, land-use and
livelihood transformation, and racial prejudice. Her argu-
ments have significance for the broader context of
globalisation and the power of dominant ideas, narratives
and discourses that are shaped by Eurocentric histories and
thinking.
Dr LEAH M GIBBS
Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences,
University of Glasgow,
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
Published online 23 December 2008 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com)
DOI: 10.1002/ldr.890
LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 20: 347–348 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ldr