The British Empire and The Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia

This volume provides multi-layered analysis of the environmental impacts under the colonial rule. Presenting detailed case studies from across the Indian subcontinent, it discusses different aspects of Empire-environment encounters like imagination of environment; politics of natural resource management; irrigation and flood control projects; cultural negotiations; and forest and ecological changes. The essays explore the nature of global environmental transformations in the nineteenth century, complex and varied inter-colonial exchanges, techniques and technologies, and the institutionalization of various environmental imaginings. The volume documents the shifts in recent environmental history of the subcontinent. Examining key debates on the subject, it also underlines the need to revisit the role of British Empire as an apt conceptual template for the writing of global environmental history.

This book will be of considerable interest to teachers, students, and scholars of ecological and environmental history particularly those concerned with modern India and the British Empire.