Agriculture, Resource Exploitation, and Environmental Change

Download or read book Agriculture, Resource Exploitation, and Environmental Change written by Helen Wheatley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-24 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the ecological consequences of European expansion as a result of land use and resource exploitation. These environmental transformations could be as dramatic as the last Ice Age, but scholars have only begun to take full measure of the changes. The articles presented here provide a map of some of the more promising directions of historical research. Major themes include biological exchange, agriculture, extraction of forest and animal resources, interactions between indigenous and European methods of exploitation, and European approaches to regulation and conservation. A useful corrective to the frontier image of Europeans conquering the wilderness, this volume provides a rich picture of the diversity of European interests and the sometimes unexpected consequences of their approaches to the land.