Mosquito Empires

Mosquito
Empires sets out to prove an ambitious claim; the ecology of
the Greater Caribbean played a large role in colonization and subsequent
rebellion against the colonial rulers. The ecology being the warm environment
needed to sustain Malaria and Yellow Fever, as well as the human impact that
came from setting up farms.  Within his
argument he is also attempting to prove a greater point.  "To some extent, almost all human
history is really a co-evolutionary process involving society and
nature."  A message, no doubt,
enjoyed by Environment and History,
the journal that published his first paper on the subject. In many ways his
book is making an argument for environment playing a larger role in history on
top of the aforementioned thesis. The book is organized in two parts.  One is "setting the stage" and the
other is made up of instances and evidence for his larger argument.  This means that the earlier chunks of the
book are more thematic and the latter half is chronological.  The first part gives you the tools to
understand the significance of the later half, which is the crux of his
argument.  The environment was used both
by the conquerors and the conquered.  The
Europeans used the environment to bolster economic growth back home, through
the trade of gold, sugar, and other resources found.  However, sometimes the conquered themselves
used the Malaria and Yellow fever to fight the Europeans, as was the case
during a plantation uprising. Other times, the author seems to give the
environment itself agency, a place that if not respected could easily destroy
the unwary traveler as evidenced by the destruction of the Scottish
colonization attempt.
The author uses many sources written in Cuba and the Greater
Caribbean during the 1800's and earlier along with reports from the conquerors
and the conquered. The bibliography is everything that could be expected from a
good historian.  It acknowledges the
other writers on the subject and also gives a multifaceted view of the events
from the eyes of the people that experienced it.  Mosquito
Empires successfully inserts environment into the historical discourse of
the Atlantic world.
Category:Exploration and Empire