Informationen zum Autor Tom Brooking is Professor of History at the University of Otago! New Zealand. He is co-editor (with Eric Pawson) of Environmental Histories of New Zealand (2002) and is a member of the Council of the Agricultural History Society. Eric Pawson is Professor of Geography at the University of Canterbury! New Zealand. He chaired the Advisory Committee for the New Zeland Historical Atlas. In 2007 he received the Distinguished New Zealand Geographer Medal. Klappentext 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. 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. Zusammenfassung 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. Inhaltsverzeichnis PrefaceContributorsTerminology, Maori language conventions, place names and measurements Figures and Tables1 Introduction 2 The contours of transformation 3 Learning about the environment in early colonial New Zealand 4 Pioneer grassland farming: pragmatism, innovation and experimentation 5 Pastoralism and the transformation of the open grasslands 6 Mobilising capital and trade 7 The grass seed trade 8 Flows of agricultural information 9 The farmer, science and the state in New Zealand 10 Remaking the grasslands: the 1920s and 1930s 11 ConclusionAppendix 1: Common and formal names of plants Appendix 2: Short biographies of twelve pasture plants Notes Index...

Vorwort
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.

Autorentext
TOM BROOKING is Associate Professor of History at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He specializes in New Zealand and comparative rural and environmental history and has published five books and numerous book chapters, essays, and articles.

Klappentext

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.

Inhalt
Preface Contributors Terminology, Maori language conventions, place names and measurements Figures and Tables 1 Introduction 2 The contours of transformation 3 Learning about the environment in early colonial New Zealand 4 Pioneer grassland farming: pragmatism, innovation and experimentation 5 Pastoralism and the transformation of the open grasslands 6 Mobilising capital and trade 7 The grass seed trade 8 Flows of agricultural information 9 The farmer, science and the state in New Zealand 10 Remaking the grasslands: the 1920s and 1930s 11 Conclusion Appendix 1: Common and formal names of plants Appendix 2: Short biographies of twelve pasture plants Notes Index