Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 39 (2013) 139e151 147

local knowledge in the second suggest that a more directlycomparative analysis would have been useful here. Examining howand why the engagements with ‘local’ interlocutors in Coromandeland Jamaica differed would have been useful in establishing thedurability and circuits of different forms of ‘local knowledge’. Itmight also have opened up differences and disjunctures in theprocesses by which metropolitan power was established over its‘hinterlands’. That is, I hope, to ask for more of the same fromwhatis a very useful and provocative book.

Miles OgbornQueen Mary University of London, UK

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2012.10.005

Christina Folke Ax, Niels Brimnes, Niklas Thode Jensen and KarenOslund (Eds), Cultivating the Colonies: Colonial States and Their Envi-ronmental Legacies. Athens, Ohio University Press, 2011, xiv þ 337pages, US$29.95 paperback.

There is much to recommend about Cultivating the Colonies. Theeditors position their volume as a tribute to the work of RichardGrove, whose contributions did much to advance our under-standings of environmental colonialism and colonial environments.The introduction by Karen Oslund sets a helpful tone for thevolume. Cleverly titled ‘Getting our hands dirty’, Oslund’s centresthe volume around the uniqueness of colonial managementregimes as they pertain to environmental issues; that is, werecolonial states more destructive or more transformative of theenvironments they encountered than other modern states? Tocontextualize the responses offered by the various authors, Oslundoffers a useful review of relevant texts in colonial environmentalhistory, with particular emphasis on the contributions offered byGrove and by James Scott’s Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press,1998), whose insights, she suggests, permeate the chapters thatfollow. The introduction is satisfying and sets the stage effectivelyfor the chapters that follow.

The chapters themselves are grouped into three sections.‘Perceiving the colonial environment’ consists of four chapterswhose topics range from health in the colonies to how environ-ments shaped colonial identities and the role of aerial photographyin colonial idealizations of agricultural land. The second section on‘Managing the colonial environment’ reviews efforts by colonialadministrators to manage diverse elements of rule includingwetlands, winters, disease, and diets. The third section, ‘The legacyof colonialism’, critically evaluates the continuity between colonialand post-colonial management regimes in the areas of conserva-tion, forestry, and agriculture. This organization ensures that themajor ideas unfold in a logical manner, but more might have beendone to tease out the volume’s conclusions and contributions toknowledge. Short, introductory transitions preceding each sectionwould have reminded the reader why the editors organized thechapters in these ways, as well as emphasized the new ideas andknowledge that emerge from this logic. A conclusion would alsohave beenwelcome. The central argument that Oslund raises in theintroduction is fundamentally concerned with the comparisonbetween the various case studies: ‘at least some colonial states hadthe potential to configure power differently than their precolonialpredecessors did, but this potential was not always realized inpractice’ (p. 3). This point becomes a bit lost within the threesections: a short conclusion synthesizing what the different chap-ters contribute to this important question would have deepenedthe book’s overarching coherence.

What is most impressive about this volume is its scope. Itseleven chapters span a range of geographical locations, offeringuseful insight into how colonial perceptions, management, andlegacies contrasted across very different contexts. Equally notable isthe range of colonial powers surveyed: in addition to the usualsuspects (British, French, German, Portuguese), some of the lesser-known colonial agents are also treated (including Russian, Amer-ican, and Spanish). This commitment to scope is also evident at thelevel of the individual chapters. Many authors compress anextensive temporal scope into concise chapters, some of whichspan hundreds of years. For instance, Julia Lajus’s chapter chartsRussian efforts to colonize the north from the thirteenth to thetwentieth centuries, while Phia Steyn’s chapter evaluates thechanging diets of the Basuto from the 1830s to today. Others covera remarkable spatial scope. Christopher Morris’s chapter onwetland colonies deserves special mention here: he expertlydemonstrates how French colonialists understood and managedwetlands in very different contexts (India, China, North America,Africa) in much the same way.

One minor shortcoming relates to the nominal engagementwith the scholarship of either Richard Grove or James Scott. In theintroduction Oslund suggests that the work of these two scholarsties the volume together, yet Grove and Scott are each cited in onlythree empirical chapters. This seems like a missed opportunity totease out how their contributions connect the different empiricalcase studies, and in what ways this volume furthers our under-standing of how colonial managers perceived and impacted humanand non-human environments. A number of chapters engageimplicitly with Grove and Scott’s respective bodies of work: Eliz-abeth Lunstrum’s chapter on the socialization of the countrysideresonates with Scott’s work on villagization in Tanzania, as doesDavid Biggs’ discussion of the modernist ideals in French Indochinaand the disconnect between the representation and realities ofcolonial rule. Similarly, both Kavita Sivaramakirshnan’s and PeterAnkers’s chapter chronicle the scattered and often messyexchanges of information, specimens, and experts that under-pinned colonial exchanges, yet no mention is made of how thesecontributions build upon Grove’s important work in this area. Moreprompting from the editors as to how these chapters further thework of these two scholars would have given the collection morecoherence. But these are minor weaknesses in an otherwise strongand illuminating volume.

Matthew A. SchnurrDalhousie University, Canada

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2012.11.003

Daniel W. Gade, Curiosity, Inquiry, and the Geographical Imagination.New York, Peter Lang, 2011, xviii þ 307 pages, £34.80 hardcover.

More than anything, this book is an autobiographical manifestoabout intellectual curiosity and personal commitment as drivingforces in geographical research. It stands in opposition to much ofwhat is going on, especially in American geography where theoryand a handful of fashionable ideas dominate the journals andprofessional meetings. If today those concerns are global warming,food security, neoliberal economies, or terrorism, then in ten, ormaybe even only five years, they will be something else. To DanielGade research is not about following contemporary trends forreasons of social relevancy or fashion, but the passion of pursuingone’s intellectual curiosity wherever that leads. For this author thepath has involved looking into the hidden corners of an idiosyncratic