Paperback

Insatiable Appetite

The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World, Concise Revised Edition

Richard P. Tucker

Now in a concise edition created expressly for students and general readers, this widely hailed study traces the transformation of the tropics in modern times. Exploring the central role of the United States in the ongoing devastation of tropical lands, Richard P. Tucker shows how, in the late 1800s, American speculators first became participants in the centuries-long history of European economic and ecological hegemony in the tropics. Beginning as buyers in the tropical ports of the Atlantic and Pacific, they evolved into land speculators, controlling and managing the areas where tropical crops were grown for carefully fostered consumer markets at home. As corporate agro-industry emerged, the speculators took direct control of the ecological destinies of many tropical lands. Supported by the U.S. government's diplomatic and military protection, they built private empires in the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and West Africa.

Yankee investors and plantation managers mobilized engineers, agronomists, and loggers to undertake what they called the "Conquest of the Tropics," claiming to bring civilization to benighted peoples and cultivation to unproductive nature. In competitive cooperation with local landed and political elites, they not only cleared natural forests but also displaced multicrop tribal and peasant lands with monocrop export plantations rooted in private property regimes.

In a masterful narrative, Tucker highlights the unrelenting pressure that the demands of U.S. consumerism placed on fragile tropical lands. The forced domestication of widely varied natural systems ultimately led to a devastating decline in biodiversity. The author brings his analysis to life with a series of vivid case studies of sugar, bananas, coffee, rubber, beef, and timber—each a virtual empire in itself. All readers who are interested in environmental degradation and its links to the world economy will be enlightened by this nuanced history.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7425-5365-1 • Paperback • April 2007 • $50.00 • (£38.00)

Series: Exploring World History

Subjects: History / Latin America / General, Political Science / International Relations / General, Political Science / Public Policy / Environmental Policy, History / United States / General, History / World

Courses: History; World History; General

Insatiable Appetite

The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World, Concise Revised Edition

Paperback

Summary

Now in a concise edition created expressly for students and general readers, this widely hailed study traces the transformation of the tropics in modern times. Exploring the central role of the United States in the ongoing devastation of tropical lands, Richard P. Tucker shows how, in the late 1800s, American speculators first became participants in the centuries-long history of European economic and ecological hegemony in the tropics. Beginning as buyers in the tropical ports of the Atlantic and Pacific, they evolved into land speculators, controlling and managing the areas where tropical crops were grown for carefully fostered consumer markets at home. As corporate agro-industry emerged, the speculators took direct control of the ecological destinies of many tropical lands. Supported by the U.S. government's diplomatic and military protection, they built private empires in the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and West Africa.

Yankee investors and plantation managers mobilized engineers, agronomists, and loggers to undertake what they called the "Conquest of the Tropics," claiming to bring civilization to benighted peoples and cultivation to unproductive nature. In competitive cooperation with local landed and political elites, they not only cleared natural forests but also displaced multicrop tribal and peasant lands with monocrop export plantations rooted in private property regimes.

In a masterful narrative, Tucker highlights the unrelenting pressure that the demands of U.S. consumerism placed on fragile tropical lands. The forced domestication of widely varied natural systems ultimately led to a devastating decline in biodiversity. The author brings his analysis to life with a series of vivid case studies of sugar, bananas, coffee, rubber, beef, and timber—each a virtual empire in itself. All readers who are interested in environmental degradation and its links to the world economy will be enlightened by this nuanced history.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-0-7425-5365-1 • Paperback • April 2007 • $50.00 • (£38.00)

Series: Exploring World History

Subjects: History / Latin America / General, Political Science / International Relations / General, Political Science / Public Policy / Environmental Policy, History / United States / General, History / World

Courses: History; World History; General

Author

Richard P. Tucker is adjunct professor of natural resources at the University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

Introduction: America's Global Environmental Reach
Chapter 1: America's Sweet Tooth: Cane Sugar Transforms Tropical Lowlands
Chapter 2: Banana Republics: Yankee Fruit Companies and the Tropical American Lowlands
Chapter 3: The Last Drop: The American Coffee Market and the Hill Regions of South America
Chapter 4: The Tropical Cost of the Automotive Age: Corporate Rubber Empires and the Rainforest
Chapter 5: The Crop on Hooves: American Cattle Ranching in Latin America
Chapter 6: Unsustainable Yield: American Loggers and Foresters in the Tropics
Conclusion: Consuming Appetites

Reviews

This insightful work condenses and updates the original 2000 edition. Tucker explores the ecological destruction of tropical environments by US capitalists and corporations. . . . The author largely attributes tropical degradation to the insatiable appetite of the American consumer. Recommended.
— Choice Reviews

Richard Tucker has drawn on a lifetime of scholarship to produce a critical account of the ways American companies and consumers have contributed to the environmental degradation of tropical countries. Anyone interested in the American impact on the third world will benefit from the insights and information in this wide-ranging and remarkable study. The abridged paperback will find a place in a variety of classes, bringing this important story to a broader audience.
— David S. Painter, Georgetown University

This investigation creates space for big history, using consumption to bring economy and environment together.
— Anthony J. Amato

A comprehensive history of American roles in tropical agriculture and forestry . . . ranging from business and environmental history to anthropology, political science, and ecology. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Charles Coate; Journal of American History

I, and many other environmental scientists, will find it an invaluable source. . . . Too few [Americans] realize the enormous impacts citizens of the USA have because of their consumption of mundane items ranging from bananas and coffee to hamburgers, magazines and trophy homes. Richard Tucker's monumental book could help cure that ignorance. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University; Environmental Conservation

[A] well-researched, thorough exploration of the US's role in resource exploitation in the tropics. . . . The book is important as more than a historical work because the driving forces behind large-scale corporate agricultural production and timber exploitation remain at work today. Highly recommended. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Choice Reviews

[The] subject is one that diplomatic historians have not even considered, and [Tucker] is far more international than . . . most environmental historians. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Kurk Dorsey, University of New Hampshire; Journal of Interdisciplinary History

This well-written book presents a critical and much-needed new insight into an important problem. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Otto T. Solbrig, Harvard University

This is a fascinating book. Tucker draws together an amazing amount of material to demonstrate how the United States, through exploitation, consumption, and demand over the past several centuries, has had a major impact on the ecology of tropical landscapes. It is a sobering, much-needed, wake-up call to those who view the tropics as an endless cornucopia of resources. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Charles M. Peters, The New York Botanical Garden

Features

Extends studies of imperialism, globalization, and the place of the United States in the world to include ecological transformations around the tropics

Traces the impact of American consumerism across the tropical world

Links domestic U.S. history with world history

Covers five continents in its synthesis of political and economic history, historical geography, forestry, and ecology