The East India Company and the Natural World (Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History)

This book is the first to explore the deep and lasting impacts of the largest colonial trading company, the British East India Company on the natural environment. The contributors – drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines - illuminate the relationship between colonial capital and the changing environment between 1600 and 1857. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introduction: New Imperial and Environmental Histories of the Indian Ocean....Pages 1-15 Botanical Explorations and the East India Company: Revisiting ‘Plant Colonialism’....Pages 16-34 Medicine and Botany in the Making of Madras, 1680–1720....Pages 35-57 Robert Wight and his European Botanical Collaborators....Pages 58-79 The East India Company, Famine and Ecological Conditions in Eighteenth-Century Bengal....Pages 80-101 Colonial Private Diaries and their Potential for Reconstructing Historical Climate in Bombay, 1799–1828....Pages 102-127 Mischievous Rivers and Evil Shoals: The English East India Company and the Colonial Resource Regime....Pages 128-146 The Rafflesia in the Natural and Imperial Imagination of the East India Company in Southeast Asia....Pages 147-166 ‘A proper set of views’: The British East India Company and the Eighteenth-Century Visualization of South-East Asia....Pages 167-192 Unlikely Partners: Malay-Indonesian Medicine and European Plant Science....Pages 193-218 Plants, Animals and Environmental Transformation: Indian-New Zealand Biological and Landscape Connections, 1830s–1890s....Pages 219-248 St Helena as a Microcosm of the East India Company World....Pages 249-269 Afterword....Pages 270-271 Back Matter....Pages 272-297 Preface / Anna Winterbottom Introduction : new imperial and environmental histories of the Indian Ocean / Alan Lester Botanical explorations and the East India Company : revisiting "plant colonialism" / Deepak Kumar Medicine and botany in the making of Madras, 1680-1720 / Anna Winterbottom Robert Wright and his European botanical collaborators / H.J. Noltie The East India Company, famine and ecological conditions in eighteenth-century Bengal / Vinita Damodaran Colonial private diaries and their potential for reconstructing historical climate in Bombay, 1799-1828 / George Adamson Mischievous rivers and evil shoals : the English East India Company and the Colonial Resource Regime / Rohan D'Souza The Rafflesia in the natural and imperial imagination of the East India Company in Southeast Asia / Timothy P. Barnard "A proper set of views" : the British East India Company and the eighteenth-century visualization of South-East Asia / Geoff Quilley Unlikely partners : Malay-Indonesian medicine and European plant science / Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells Plants, animals and environmental transformation : Indian-New Zealand biological and landscape connections, 1830s-1890s / James Beattie St Helena as a microcosm of the East India Company World / A.T. Grove Afterword / Vinita Damodaran. Cover 1 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 List of Tables 12 Preface 13 Notes on Contributors 18 Introduction: New Imperial and Environmental Histories of the Indian Ocean 21 1 Botanical Explorations and the East India Company: Revisiting ‘Plant Colonialism’ 36 2 Medicine and Botany in the Making of Madras, 1680–1720 55 3 Robert Wight and his European Botanical Collaborators 78 4 The East India Company, Famine and Ecological Conditions in Eighteenth-Century Bengal 100 5 Colonial Private Diaries and their Potential for Reconstructing Historical Climate in Bombay, 1799–1828 122 6 Mischievous Rivers and Evil Shoals: The English East India Company and the Colonial Resource Regime 148 7 The Rafflesia in the Natural and Imperial Imagination of the East India Company in Southeast Asia 167 8 ‘A proper set of views’: The British East India Company and the Eighteenth-Century Visualization of South-East Asia 187 9 Unlikely Partners: Malay-Indonesian Medicine and European Plant Science 213 10 Plants, Animals and Environmental Transformation: Indian–New Zealand Biological and Landscape Connections, 1830s–1890s 239 11 St Helena as a Microcosm of the East India Company World 269 Afterword 290 Select Bibliography 292 Index 305 "The East India Company and the Natural World is the first work to explore the deep and lasting impacts of the largest colonial trading company, the British East India Company on the natural environment. The EIC both contributed to and recorded environmental change during the first era of globalization. From the small island of St Helena in the South Atlantic, to peninsula India and outposts in South and Southeast Asia, the Company presence profoundly altered the environment by introducing plants and animals, felling forests, and redirecting rivers. The threats of famine and disease encouraged experiments with agriculture and the recording of the virtues of medicinal plants. The EIC records of the weather, the soils, and the flora provide modern climate scientists with invaluable data. The contributors - drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines - use the lens of the Company to illuminate the relationship between colonial capital and the changing environment between 1600 and 1857. "-- Provided by publisher