Alfred Crosby\u2019s Ecological Imperials took away any doubts I may have had about environmental history as a field of study. Crosby makes a convincing argument about the environmental factors that impacted European colonization that expands on the well-known idea that European\u2019s brought disease with them and also discusses a new element, that the European\u2019s were able to expand because of how the environments allowed their crops to be successful.<\/p>\n
It is pretty well known that European\u2019s brought disease with them when they came to America, which was a major factor in the decimation of the Native American population, but Crosby provides a further explanation for this. Crosby cites how when European cultures began to settle in one place and stray from the hunting lifestyle, they exposed themselves to diseases which wiped out sections of their populations. However, in Darwinian fashion, the European\u2019s who survived developed immunities to the diseases brought on by their lifestyle, and therefore when they brought their lifestyle to the New World, they remained immune while indigenous members of the population were not. Crosby\u2019s conclusion from these facts is that, \u201cThe only truly effective way to deal with the major communicable pathogens of the world is directly, thus building \u2013 if one survives \u2013 immunity against them\u201d (287).<\/p>\n
I think Manish makes an interesting point when he says \u201cIn retrospect it would have been to the benefit of many of the indigenous populations to attempt to isolate themselves and retain their native identities for their immune systems lacked exposure to the vast majority of pathogens that the Europeans had endured for hundreds of years.\u201d While that might be true, it\u2019s hard to say if the European\u2019s had known the consequences of their shifting lifestyle would bring on so much death and disease that they would have settled anyway. While it was advantageous to European\u2019s in the end, going through centuries of death while they could have maintained a hunting lifestyle separate from animals is a major price to pay, and if they had known what they were getting into I would argue they would have continued on with their more \u201cnatural\u201d way of life.<\/p>\n
I also found Crosby\u2019s argument about how European\u2019s were able to change the physical landscape of the New World to adapt to their lifestyle very convincing. Ian brings up how successful sugar production in Australia was due to how conducive the climate was, and that the bringing of the foreign entities allowed the members of the Old World to excel while living off the land. I really liked the term Crosby uses of \u201cEuropean erosion\u201d (97), as it goes beyond how successful European products were and instead discusses how the weeds and foreign plants helped push out the indigenous cultures, like with the Guanches of the Canaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alfred Crosby\u2019s Ecological Imperials took away any doubts I may have had about environmental history as a field of study. Crosby makes a convincing argument about the environmental factors that impacted European colonization that expands on the well-known idea that European\u2019s brought disease with them and also discusses a new element, that the European\u2019s were … <\/p>\n