Twentieth Century Land Settlement Schemes

Land settlement schemes, sponsored by national governments and businesses, such as the Ford Corporation and the Hudson’s Bay Company, took place in locations as diverse as the Canadian Prairies, the Dutch polders, and the Amazonian rainforests. This novel contribution evaluates a diverse range of these initiatives. By 1900, any land that remained available for agricultural settlement was often far from the settlers’ homes and located in challenging physical environments. Over the course of the twentieth century, governments, corporations and frequently desperate individuals sought out new places to settle across the globe from Alberta to Papua New Guinea. This book offers vivid reports of the difficulties faced by many of these settlers, including the experiences of East European Jewish refugees, New Zealand soldier settlers and urban families from Yorkshire. This book considers how and why these settlement schemes succeeded, found other pathways to sustainability or succumbed to failure and even oblivion. In doing so, the book indicates pathways for the achievement of more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable forms of human settlement in marginal areas. This engaging collection will be of interest to individuals in the fields of historical geography, environmental history and development studies.

Shortly before and shortly after World War I some 103 new croft holdings were created on Tiree and 35 existing ones enlarged. This was a remarkable achievement. Their impact and legacy on the island has been wide ranging and long lasting. By contrast only 10 new holdings were created on Coll. Both islands are remarkably similar in geographical size. The book, for the first time, and in considerable detail, examines the land settlement schemes that created these holdings. It also explains the different experience between the two islands in terms of land settlement activity.

Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations brings together ten papers by eight well-known historians of Newfoundland and Labrador. The papers address a wide variety of subject matter and open many avenues for further research. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography on the Newfoundland and Labrador in the Twentieth century. This bibliography is organized by topic and will serve the needs of the general reader and specialists alike. Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations highlight the scope and complexity of present day writing about the history of Newfoundland and Labrador. James Hiller, Professor of History at Memorial University and author of a number of articles on Newfoundland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Peter Neary, Professor of History at the University of Weste Ontario and the author of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929-1949(1998).

The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. The Oxford History of the British Empire as a comprehensive study allows us to understand the end of Empire in relation to its beginnings, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history. Volume IV considers many aspects of the 'imperial experience' in the final years of the British Empire, culminating in the mid-century's rapid processes of decolonization. It seeks to understand the men who managed the empire, their priorities and vision, and the mechanisms of control and connection which held the empire together. There are chapters on imperial centres, on the geographical 'periphery' of empire, and on all its connecting mechanisms, including institutions and the flow of people, money, goods, and services. The volume also explores the experience of 'imperial subjects' - in terms of culture, politics, and economics; an experience which culminated in the growth of vibrant, often new, national identities and movements and, ultimately, new nation-states. It concludes with the processes of decolonization which reshaped the political map of the late twentieth-century world.

In this richly insightful survey that represents the culmination of decades of research, a leading western specialist argues that the unique history of the American West did not end in the year 1900, as is commonly assumed, but was shaped as much--if not more--by events and innovations in the twentieth century. Earl Pomeroy gathers copious information on economic, political, social, intellectual, and business issues, thoughtfully evaluates it, and draws a new and more nuanced portrait of the West than has ever been depicted before. Pomeroy mines extensive published and unpublished sources to show how the post-1900 West charted a path that was influenced by, but separate from, the rest of the country and the world. He deals not only with the West's transition from an agricultural to an urban region but also with the important contributions of minority racial and ethnic groups and women in that transformation. Pomeroy describes a modern West--increasingly urban, transnational, and multicultural--that has overcome much of the isolation that challenged it at an earlier time. His final book is nothing short of the definitive source on that West.

"Jamaica's rich history has been the subject of many books, articles and papers. This collection of eighteen original essays considers aspects of Jamaican history not covered in more general histories of the island, and illluminates more recent developments in Jamaican and West Indian history." "Unique in its interdisciplinary approach, the collection emphasizes the relevance of history to everyday life and the development of a national identity, culture and economy. The essays are organized in three sections: Historiography and Sources; Society, Culture and Heritage; and Economy, Labour and Politics, with contributions from scholars in the Departments of History, Literatures in English and Political Sciences and from the Main Library, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica." -- Book Jacket.

UN publication sales no. E.88.III.A.4

This study of banana contract farming in the Eastern Caribbean explores the forces that shape contract-farming enterprises everywhere--capital, the state, and the environment. Employing the increasingly popular framework of political ecology, which highlights the dynamic linkages between political-economic forces and human-environment relationships, Lawrence Grossman provides a new perspective on the history and contemporary trajectory of the Windward Islands banana industry. He reveals in rich detail the myriad impacts of banana production on the peasant laborers of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Grossman challenges the conventional wisdom on three interrelated issues central to contract farming and political ecology. First, he analyzes the process of deskilling and the associated significance of control by capital and the state over peasant labor. Second, he investigates the impacts of contract farming for export on domestic food production and food import dependency. And third, he examines the often misunderstood problem of pesticide misuse. Grossman's findings lead to a reconsideration of broader debates concerning the relevance of research on industrial restructuring and globalization for the analysis of agrarian change. Most important, his work emphasizes that we must pay greater attention to the fundamental significance of the "environmental rootedness" of agriculture in studies of political ecology and contract farming.