05938nam 22011894a 450 991078008060332120200520144314.00-520-92381-21-282-35645-397866123564521-59734-678-010.1525/9780520923812(CKB)111056485639880(EBL)223600(OCoLC)475928531(SSID)ssj0000179688(PQKBManifestationID)11183115(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000179688(PQKBWorkID)10138727(PQKB)11011016(StDuBDS)EDZ0000055919(MiAaPQ)EBC223600(OCoLC)49570022(MdBmJHUP)muse30584(DE-B1597)519666(DE-B1597)9780520923812(Au-PeEL)EBL223600(CaPaEBR)ebr10054460(CaONFJC)MIL235645(dli)HEB31240(MiU)MIU01000000000000012353873(EXLCZ)9911105648563988020000404d2000 uy 0engur|||||||nn|ntxtccrInsatiable appetite[electronic resource] the United States and the ecological degradation of the tropical world /Richard P. TuckerBerkeley University of California Pressc20001 online resource (567 p.)Description based upon print version of record.0-520-22087-0 Includes bibliographical references (p. 437-524) and index.Front matter --Contents --Acknowledgments --Introduction --1. America's Sweet Tooth: The Sugar Trust And The Caribbean Lowlands --2. Lords Of The Pacific: Sugar Barons In The Hawaiian And Philippine Islands --3. Banana Republics: Yankee Fruit Companies And The Tropical American Lowlands --4. The Last Drop: The American Coffee Market And The Hill Regions Of Latin America --5. The Tropical Cost Of The Automotive Age: Corporate Rubber Empires And The Rainforest --6. The Crop On Hooves: Yankee Interests In Tropical Cattle Ranching --7. Unsustainable Yield: American Foresters And Tropical Timber Resources --Conclusion --Appendix --Notes --Bibliography --IndexIn the late 1800's American entrepreneurs became participants in the 400-year 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 migrated and 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. This book is a rich history of the transformation of the tropics in modern times, pointing ultimately to the declining biodiversity that has resulted from the domestication of widely varied natural systems. Richard P. Tucker graphically illustrates his study with six major crops, each a virtual empire in itself-sugar, bananas, coffee, rubber, beef, and timber. He concludes that as long as corporate-dominated free trade is ascendant, paying little heed to its long-term ecological consequences, the health of the tropical world is gravely endangered.Tropical cropsEconomic aspectsHistory20th centuryTropical cropsEnvironmental aspectsHistory20th centuryInvestments, AmericanTropicsHistory20th centuryEnvironmental degradationTropicsHistory20th centuryagriculture.american history.bananas.beef.biodiversity.caribbean.central america.civilization.coffee.commerce.commodities.conservation.cultivation.ecology.environment.environmental history.environmental impact.environmentalism.forest.free trade.land speculation.latin american history.monocrops.nonfiction.pacific.plantations.rubber.south america.southeast asia.sugar.timber.trade.transnational history.tropical crops.tropical lands.tropical ports.tropics.west africa.white mans burden.Tropical cropsEconomic aspectsHistoryTropical cropsEnvironmental aspectsHistoryInvestments, AmericanHistoryEnvironmental degradationHistory333.7/0913Tucker Richard P.1938-1016746MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910780080603321Insatiable appetite2380608UNINA