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About this book
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.
`This is a fascinating book. Tucker draws together an amazing amount of material to demonstrate how the US, through exploitation, consumption, and demand over the past several centuries, has had a major impact on the ecology of tropical landscapes. It is a sobering, much-needed wake-up call to those who view the tropics as an endless cornucopia of resources.' Charles M. Peters, The New York Botanical Garden
Contents
Introduction PART ONE: CROPLANDS 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 Coast of the Automotive Age: Corporate Runner Empires and the Rainforest PART TWO: PASTURELANDS 6. The Crop on Hooves: Yankee Interests in Tropical Cattle Ranching PART THREE: FORESTLANDS 7. Unsustainable Yields: American Foresters and Tropical Timber Resources
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Biography
Richard P. Tucker is Professor of Asian and Environmental History at Oakland University, and Adjunct Professor of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan. He is coeditor of Global Deforestation and the Nineteenth-Century World Economy (1983),World Deforestation in the Twentieth Century (1987), and other books.