Sunday, March 30, 2008

A Complaint

Dear Richard H. Grove,

I have been assigned to read a portion of your book, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860, and have a question for you. How would you define "chapter"?

The chapters of your book are a diverse species. They are the canis lupus familiaris of book chapters.

For example, chapter 4, "Stephen Hales and some Newtonian Antecedents of Climatic Environmentalism, 1700-1763," clocks in at a scant 16 pages.

Chapter 5, "Protecting the Climate of Paradise: Pierre Poivre and the Conservation of Mauritius Under the Ancien Regime" is a mere three pages short of 100.

When you have 100 pages worth of something to say on a subject, you need either an editor or a second book.

That is all,
CGDH

1 comment:

KyleMatthieu said...

Richard H Grove suffered a catastrophic head injury in late 2006 and will never recover. If you have queries about his work, you could direct them to his colleague and former partner Vinita Damodaran in the History Department at the University of Sussex.