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In Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Alfred W. Crosby attempts to explain why Europeans “triumphed” in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and South America (regions he calls “Neo-Europes) (7). The period Crosby studies is one thousand years long, and the region encompasses nearly the whole globe. Crosby bravely studies a vast subject in terms of time and place. This vastness is both the reason why Crosby can present such an enticing argument and also why the argument may fail to be convincing.
The vastness of time and place is the reason Crosby can present his argument because he needs the full thousand years to trace how ecological causes–not Europeans’ “superiority in arms, organization, and fanaticism”–led to European success in the Neo-Europes. Though disease worked quickly, plants and animals took longer to change Neo-European environments than the timeline of conventional stories of human-centered European imperialism in the New World. Crosby acknowledges the length of time necessary to validate his argument: “the success of the portmanteau biota and of its dominant member, the European human, was a team effort by organisms that had evolved in conflict and cooperation over a long time” (293).
The vastness of time and place is also worrying because it is so vast. I found the fourth chapter, “The Fortunate Isles” and the tenth chapter, “New Zealand,” most convincing because Crosby focused on particular regions. “The stories of all the continental Neo-Europes are too long and complicated to tell within the limitations of this book,” writes Crosby, “therefore, we turn to New Zealand.” It is admirable that he acknowledges the impossibility of chronicling the stories of the other regions. Additionally, Crosby’s evidence is primarily secondary. I think the scope of his argument necessitated secondary evidence, but history relies on primary evidence. But then maybe this isn’t really history as much as an ecological study with historical implications?
I had a different reaction to this book than Sean did (February 9). He said that it resolved his doubts about environmental history as an academic discipline. Ecological Imperialism did the opposite for me. Crosby’s argument is convincing because it makes a lot of sense, and he uses convincing evidence. And I really want to believe it because it seems right. Crosby’s argument is ambitious and it seems convincing . But maybe it’s just a little too good to be true.