Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:43:11 -0800
H-ASIA January 31, 1996
From: Laxman D. Satya <lsatya@eagle.lhup.edu>
Dear friends:
I am collecting data on the environmental impact of British colonialism
in India in the nineteenth century. I would greatly appreciate if anyone
would please suggest any sources (particularly secondary sources) in this
field.
Thank you,
Laxman D. Satya
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 10:36:55 -0800
H-ASIA February 3, 1996 Cross post items: with reference to Indian colonial environmental history:
1.)
Note: in this post a few titles are given in incomplete form, please see
the editorial note following with details. Also, the H-ASEH editor appears
to have not included e-mail addresses for some of the posts. Any
inconvenience is regretted.
F.F.C.
From: "Dennis Williams, Southern Nazarene U." <DWILLIAM@SNU.EDU>
Re useful materials on India and landscape and impact of colonialism: see
especially Mahesh Rangarajan, _Fencing the Forest; the colonial state and
the forests of the Central Provinces 1800-1947_ (Delhi: OUP 1996).
This has just come out and is very good on Shikar.
The SSRC has just held a colloquium (in Hawaii!) on environmental
discourses in South and South East Asia many useful papers which Julia
Cole of SSRC New York would no doubt pass on. See also Zimmerman, The
Jungle of the Aromas: OUP 1993 for a fascinating analysis of the
ecological content of early sanskritic texts. See also Mackenzie, The
Empire of Nature, Manchester UK 1990 and Mackenzie ed. Imperialism and
the natural world. In the latter I have a 55pp paper called on colonial
expansion, ecological hegemony and popular resistance, but it is already
outdated and somewhat unsatisfactory, but has a useful bibliog. There are
also books by Ram Guha (The Unquiet Woods) and Guha and Gadgil (This
fissured land-towards an ecological history of India) but they are both
very problematic, nationalistic and historically inaccurate, suffering
from what I like to call the Golden Age syndrome (i.e. every thing
pre-colonial was wonderful; a notion which appromimates the myth of trhe
ecological (red) Indian in the USA). Issue 2 of _Environment and History_
has several good articles on colonialism and the env. esp by Damodaran
and Michael Mann. _Environment and History_ can be obtained from White
Horse Press, 10 High St Knapwell, Cambridge UK sub is 60 dollars a year
but they supply individual issues. Unfortunately _Nature and the Orient;
essays in the env hist of S and SE Asia_ (OUP Delhi 1996) isn't out yet (it
has gone to press) but the bibliography is helpful for those taking South
Asian courses. If anyone is desperate I can send them a copy.
Other thoughts on colonialism and the environment and early modern period:
While Crosby is useful (and he would be the first to admit this) his
Ecological Imperlaism does NOT cover Africa, India or SE Asia at all and
his theories dont work well in those areas, arguably. Interestingly the
introduction of Maize and other american crops into China had a mega
environmental impact comparable to that of the Mayas in Central America
(i.e. deforestation massive soil erosion, soil exhaustion, by the mid
16th century). There is a good PhD thesis on this at Australian National
University, which I have just examined and could send details of if
anyone is interested. But.....CUP have a book in press edited by Mark Elvin
entitled "Essays on the environmental History of China" with 30m chapters
which shoudl be interesting reading in 1997(?) It has already come out in
Chinese for those who can read Chinese.
yours
Richard Grove
2.)
There is a lot of work on British colonial forestry policy in India, its
impact on local communities, and resistance to colonial schemes. A few
authors that come to mind -- Madhav Gadgil, Ramachandra Guha, Richard
Tucker, Richard Grove. The first two I know have written articles in Past
and Present and the Economic and Political Weekly. I'll get the exact
references for you when I have the chance.
Sincerely,
Jacob Tropp
3.)
From: Charles Raymond Katz <ckatz@uclink.berkeley.edu>
I believe that Eugene Irschick, _Dialogue and History:
Constructing South India_ (1994) will have some material
of interest to both of you.
Charlie Katz
4.)
From: "S. Ravi Rajan" <srrajan@violet.berkeley.edu>
I have a syllabus for a comparative environmental history course I taught
last year examining the literature that exists on India and Southern
Africa. I'd be happy to e-mail this to anyone on this net.
Regards, R.
S. Ravi Rajan
5.)
From: John Archer <archer@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Here's two sources that should have promising leads:
Arnold, David, ed. _Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies_.
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988).
Arnold, David. _Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in
Nineteenth-Century India_ (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993).
John Archer / archer@maroon.tc.umn.edu / 612-624-3830 /
6.)
From: "Dennis Williams, Southern Nazarene U." <DWILLIAM@SNU.EDU>
Laxman Satya and Cynthia Miller, and any others doing similar research--
I'd like to mention that this is just the sort of work I'd like to
feature in papers for the conference on Multicultural Perspectives on
Environmental Writing, coming up at State University of New York,
College at Oneonta, on June 22-25. Deadline for papers is March 1, and
I'd love to receive proposals on your work on India--or similar work in
other parts of the world. With best regards,
Charlotte Zoe Walker, English Dept., SUNY Oneonta, Oneonta, NY 13820
p.s. If you send me your address, I can send you the call for papers by
regular mail. Thanks!
Ed. note: Some of the titles above are incomplete or incorrect. I have
assembled a small provisional bibliography for those titles which have
been published.
F.F.C.
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Subject: H-ASIA: India: Colonial environmental history
Query on sources on environmental history of colonial India
(x-post H-ASEH (environmental history network)
lsatya@eagle.lhup.edu
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From: Frank Conlon <conlon@u.washington.edu>
Subject: H-ASIA: India colonial environmental history
Responses to query on Indian colonial environmental history
University of Minnesota
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History, UC Berkeley
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