Peter Coates 
American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species 
Strangers on the Land

Sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose, humans have transported plants and animals to new habitats around the world. Arriving in ever-increasing numbers to American soil, recent invaders have competed with, preyed on, hybridized with, and carried diseases to native species, transforming our ecosystems and creating anxiety among environmentalists and the general public. But is American anxiety over this crisis of ecological identity a recent phenomenon? Charting shifting attitudes to alien species since the 1850s, Peter Coates brings to light the rich cultural and historical aspects of this story by situating the history of immigrant flora and fauna within the wider context of human immigration. Through an illuminating series of particular invasions, including the English sparrow and the eucalyptus tree, what he finds is that we have always perceived plants and animals in relation to ourselves and the polities to which we belong. Setting the saga of human relations with the environment in the broad context of scientific, social, and cultural history, this thought-provoking book demonstrates how profoundly notions of nationality and debates over race and immigration have shaped American understandings of the natural world.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments


1. Strangers and Natives

Knowing Nature through Nationality

The Naming of Strangers

The Alien Menace: Humanizing Nature and Naturalizing Humans

Our Fellow Immigrants

Strangers on the Land

2. The Avian Conquest of a Continent

Transatlantic Flights

Flying Feathers

The Stranger Finch

There Goes the Neighborhood: Dispossessing the Rightful Tenants of Land and Sky

Standing up for Poor Jack

The Cockney Cousin

The Successful and Exemplary Sparrow

3. Plants, Insects, and Other Strangers to the Soil

Floral Menace and Floral Promise

Strange Fruits: The Enrichment of Nature

Determining Desirability

Shutting the Door on Plant Plunderers

The Menace of Plant Quarantines

A Horticultural Ellis Island

The Rediscovery of Native Value

4. Arboreal Immigrants

Natural Beauty and Foreign Beauty

The Glamor of a Foreign Name

The Tree That Grew in Brooklyn (and Nearly Everywhere Else)

The Strange Career of the Universal Australian

The Tarnished Tree: California’s Raging Eucalyptus Controversy

Eucalyptus Eulogy: The Natural Value of Heritage

Getting Back to (Lost) Nature: Restoring Original California

Landscapes of Purity and Intolerance

5. The Nature of Alien Nation

The Nature of Fear and the Greening of Hate

Wilted Metaphors and Calling Strangers Names

Flora and Fauna That Are Here to Stay

The Globalization of Nature and the Universal Sparrow

The Historian’s Contribution


Notes / 191

Index / 249

About the author

Peter Coates is Reader in American and Environmental History in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. Among his books is Nature: Western Attitudes Since Ancient Times (UC Press).