The empire of the dandelion

Press, 4 April 1987, Page 23

The empire of the dandelion

Ecoiogicai Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. By Arthur IK Crosby. Cambridge University Press, 1986. 382 ppi. $19.95 (paperback).

(Reviewed by

Angus Ross)

I hate to see a dandelion in my lawn, and was therefore interested to find that Professor Arthur W. Crosby uses this common weed to illustrate his main thesis about the way in which European plants, animals, and disease germs have spread throughout so many parts of the world. 1 Thus, in his opening explanation of his approach to the ecological component of European imperialism, he asks, “What in heaven’s name is the reason that the sun never sets oh the empire of the dandelion?” In his discussion of the combative qualities of weeds, especially those which shoulder past rivals, he terms the dandelion “an efficient usurper.” i When imported stock Crop out indigenous plants, the dandelion and other weeds quickly take over, as they have done in Australia. Crosby is therefore able to claim that in Australia “dandelions have a more secure future than kangaroos.” 1 Crosby is Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas and has a long-continuing interest in the way in which migrating Europeans have taken their plants, birds, animals, and other organisms with them io other parts of the world. In this latest book, he makes a general survey of the subject, asking and answering many questions which will interest those with an inquiring turn of mind.' Although he sets down certain dates in his title, he virtually ignores the limits they would suggest, going back to the very beginnings of human history and coming up to 1982. Since

man -has been the most important agent in the spread of what Crosby calls “the portmanteau biota,” and since plants and animals leave no written records behind them, the author has had to depend on the records left by successive generations of writers.

As, id many cases, references to ecological history were few and far between, Crosby has had to admit that, despite the fact he has consulted virtually all works published in Spanish and English on his subject, there remains much uncertainty on some points. He is therefore forced to say “we must resort to inference from scanty information” and we must make “an educated guess.” Despite such problems, Crosby reaches reasonable conclusions. In his separate chapters on “Weeds,”, “Animals,” and "Ills,” Crosby holds that, although some plants and animals were able to make their own way across a land mass, man remained the chief agent of distribution. The extent of the spread and the number of plants involved were alike impressive. Thus, in 1937, when a careful check' was made, the state of South Australia “had 381 species of naturalised plants. Of these the great majority were Old World species, and 151 were Mediterranean species.” Crosby paints out that the traffic was mainly oneway. “The exchange has been as onesided as that of human beings.” “The exchange of animals, tame or feral or wild, between the Old World and New World has been as one-sided as the exchange of weeds.” Most New Zealanders know that Captain Cook released the first pigs in this country, and that these animals multiplied to the point where they still provide good hunting. Crosby puts it,

“with ah abundance of food, pigs can increase at the velocity of funds deposited at high compound interest” Because New Zealand represents land at a great distance from Europe, and because he himself was the first Fulbright Research Scholar attached to the Alexander Turnbull Library, Crosby < devotes a full chapter specifically to New Zealand, as well as making several references to it elsewhere. His American background shows up both in his language and the mistakes he makes. For example, he refers to “Canterbury, an Anglican colony dating from 1853,” and spells some Maori names incorrectly. He gives “Governor George Gray” as the name of the important early Governor and Premier. Crosby shows very clearly that common European diseases to which the native peoples had no immunity played a highly important role in clearing a path for the progressive take-over of the land by the European aliens. Thus, for four centuries, smallpox “played as essential a role in the advance of white imperialism as gunpowder.” Crosby claims that the “miraculous triumphs” of Cortes and Pizarro “are in large part the triumphs of the virus of smallpox.” Other diseases, respiratory, enteric and insect-borne, such as malaria, also took their toll. Overlapping as it does various disciplines, this survey may not appeal to specialists in any one of the various fields it traverses, but it should make good reading for general readers. Its statistics and fresh comparisons, together with the variety of information it contains, make it worthy of more than passing attention.