Empire and Environment: Confronting Ecological Ruination in the Asian Pacific

William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center

Empire and Environment underscores the interrelation of colonialism, racial and extractive capitalism, and environmental destruction as an imperial formation in the transpacific. The collection draws its rationale from the imbrication of imperialism and global environmental crisis, but its inspiration is from the ecological work of activists, artists, and intellectuals in the countries, nations, and lands across and within the Pacific Ocean comprising the transpacific region. This this volume takes up the “transpacific” not only as a geographical region, but as an analytic that provides a guide for countering and remaking the legacies of imperial ruination across the Pacific and its diasporas. In expanding the boundaries of the transpacific to engage frictions, intimacies, and coalitions across Asia, Pacific, and the Americas, this volume articulates a transpacific environmental ethic that is preoccupied with empire and settler colonialism’s impact on the planet. While its geographical and epistemological reach is expansive, Empire and Environment engages decolonial perspectives that are attuned to historical and cultural specificity.