Inventing Global Ecology: Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1947-1997

by Michael L. Lewis

Overview

Blue jeans, MTV, Coca-Cola, and… ecology? We don't often think of conservation sciences as a U.S. export, but in the second half of the twentieth century an astounding array of scientists and ideas flowed out from the United States into the world, preaching the gospel of conservation-oriented ecology.

Inventing Global Ecology grapples with how we should understand the development of global ecology in the twentieth century—a science that is held responsible for, literally, saving the world. Is the spread of ecology throughout the globe a subtle form of cultural imperialism, as some claim? Or is it a manifestation of an increasingly globalized world, where ideas, people, and things move about with greater freedom than ever before?

Using India as the case study, Professor Michael Lewis considers the development of conservation policies and conservation sciences since the end of World War II and the role of United States scientists, ideas, and institutions in this process. Was India subject to a subtle form of Americanization, or did Indian ecologists develop their own agenda, their own science, and their own way of understanding (and saving) the natural world? Does nationality even matter when doing ecology?

This readable narrative will carry you through the first fifty years of independent India, from the meadows of the Himalayan Mountains to the rainforests of southern India, from Gandhi and Nehru to Project Tiger. Of equal interest to the general reader, to scientists, and to scholars of history and globalization, Inventing Global Ecology combines ethnographic fieldwork and oral history conducted in India and the United States, as well as traditional archival research.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821415412
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	04/27/2004
Series:	Ecology & History
Edition description:	1
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

An assistant professor of history at Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland, Michael Lewis trained first as a biologist and later in American studies. Inventing Global Ecology comes out of research conducted in India.

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	vii
	List of Abbreviations	ix
	Introduction: Tracking Elephants	1
Chapter 1.	Tracking Ideas: Transnational Science	13
Chapter 2.	The Gateway to India: Salim Ali, S. Dillon Ripley, and the Introduction of the New Ecology to India	25
Chapter 3.	Looking for the Jungle: U.S. Ecologists in India	54
Chapter 4.	Scientists or Spies? Ecology and Cold War Suspicion	81
Chapter 5.	"Modern" Ecology Comes to India: Madhav Gadgil and the CES	109
Chapter 6.	Science to Save the Natural World: The Ecology of Conservation	138
Chapter 7.	Indian Science for Indian Conservation: Nationalism and Wildlife Biology	159
Chapter 8.	All Nature Great and Small: Designing Indian Nature Preserves	199
	Epilogue: Conservation Ecology Crossing Borders	233
	Acknowledgments	241
	Notes	243
	Bibliography	281
	Index	301

Editorial Reviews

It is people such as Lewis, and the debate that books like this can initiate, that have the potential to make a real difference to difficult and chronic global problems....this book is user-friendly for lay-readers, thanks in no small measure to the author’s superb story-telling ability.”—Nature


“Michael Lewis’s book addresses an important area of interest in Indian ecology—how institutions and personalities—both domestic and international—have shaped the conservation ethic in India from Independence to the current era of U.S.-dominated wildlife ecology.”—Landscape Ecology


“This extremely well-written book is engaging, creatively researched, and a welcome contribution to the twentieth-century history of both Indian wildlife conservation and the rise of biodiversity conservation ideas globally.”—American Historical Review

From the Publisher