American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science (Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges)

science, a growing community of American "tropical biologists" developed both the key scientific concepts and the values embedded in the modern discourse of biodiversity.Considering U.S. In doing so, Raby sheds new light on the origins of contemporary scientific and environmentalist thought and brings to the forefront a surprisingly neglected history of twentieth-century U.S. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. biological fieldwork from the era of the Spanish-American War through the anticolonial movements of the 1960s and 1970s, this study combines the history of science, environmental history, and the history of U.S.–Caribbean and Latin American relations. empire at the turn of the twentieth century, Megan Raby details how ecologists took advantage of growing U.S. landholdings in the circum-Caribbean by establishing permanent field stations for long-term, basic tropical research. science and empire.. From these outposts of U.S. Biodiversity has been a

Such insights will echo through our understandings of tropical life as a resource for generations to come.--Emily Wakild, author of Revolutionary ParksAmerican Tropics is not only the best book we have on the scientific reinvention of 'the tropics' across the twentieth century, but it is also a tour de force demonstration of how the ideal of biodiversity emerged from place-based field practices. Blending intellectual, institutional, social, environmental, and political history, Raby reveals that the now-abstract, theoretical concept of 'biodiversity' was rooted in the ideas and ambitions of several generations of U.S. mainland in Cuba, Jamaica, Guyana, and Panama. Built on a truly impressive archival foundation, this study offers a rich, nuanced understanding of the pers

. Megan Raby is assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin