European University Institute Library

Resurrecting the granary of Rome, environmental history and French colonial expansion in North Africa, Diana K. Davis

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-288) and index

platesillustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

Resurrecting the granary of Rome

bibliography

85162147

Diana K. Davis

"Tales of deforestation and desertification in North Africa have been told from the Roman period to the present. Such stories of environmental decline in the Maghreb are still recounted by experts and are widely accepted without question today. International organizations such as the United Nations frequently invoke these inaccurate stories to justify environmental conservation and development projects in the arid and semiarid lands in North Africa and around the Mediterranean basin. Recent research in arid lands ecology and new paleoecological evidence, however, do not support many claims of deforestation, overgrazing, and desertification in this region." "Diana K. Davis's pioneering analysis reveals the critical influence of French scientists and administrators who established much of the purported scientific basis of these stories during the colonial period in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, illustrating the key role of environmental narratives in imperial expansion. The processes set in place by the use of this narrative not only systematically disadvantaged the majority of North Africans but also led to profound changes in the landscape, some of which produced the land degradation that continues to plague the Maghreb today." "Resurrecting the Granary of Rome exposes many of the political, economic, and ideological goals of the French colonial project in these arid lands and the resulting definition of desertification that continues to inform global environmental and development projects. Davis's book, the first on the environmental history of the Maghreb, reframes much conventional thinking about the North African environment and is essential reading for those interested in global environmental history."--, Provided by publisher

Ohio University Press series in ecology and history

environmental history and French colonial expansion in North Africa

Imperial stories and empirical evidence -- Nature, empire, and narrative origins, 1830-48 -- Idealism, capitalism, and the development of the narrative, 1848-70 -- Triumph of the narrative, 1871-1918 -- Narrative, science, policy, and practice, 1919 to independence -- Decolonization, the colonial narrative, and environmental policy today