Seeds of Empire: The Environmental Transformation of New Zealand

Seeds of Empire: The Environmental Transformation of New Zealand
ISBN-10
0857719203
ISBN-13
9780857719201
Category
History
Pages
300
Language
English
Published
2010-10-05
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
Authors
Tom Brooking, Eric Pawson

Description

The traditional image of New Zealand is one of verdant landscapes with sheep grazing on lush green pastures. Yet this landscape is almost entirely an artificial creation. As Britain became increasingly reliant on its overseas territories for supplies of food and raw material, so all over the Empire indigenous plants were replaced with English grasses to provide the worked up products of pasture - meat, butter, cheese, wool, and hides. In New Zealand this process was carried to an extreme, with forest cleared and swamps drained. How, why and with what consequences did the transformation of New Zealand into these empires of grass occur? 'Seeds of Empire' provides both an exciting appraisal of New Zealand's environmental history and a long overdue exploration of the significance of grass in the processes of sowing empire.

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