IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB028448046

Stowaway Beetles: Carl Lindroth, the Ballast Theory, and Transatlantic Science in the Cold War (2021)

Evenden, Matthew D. (Author)

Environmental History
Volume: 26
Issue: 3
Pages: 508-532

URI: https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emab022

DOI: 10.1093/envhis/emab022

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Ecology Geopolitics Cold War Entomology Introduced organisms; exotic species 20th century North America Carl Lindroth

In his Faunal Connections between Europe and North America (1957), a landmark study of ecological introductions from Europe to North America that prefigured Alfred Crosby’s Columbian Exchange by three decades, Carl Lindroth sought to explain the distribution of fauna and particularly insects across the North Atlantic. It was the culmination of a multi-year investigation begun in 1949 that had seen the Swedish ecologist and entomologist collect insects in Newfoundland, compare his findings with other North American and European regions, and trace the origins of introduced insects to various sites in southwestern England. Through this work, he identified the ballast of sailing ships as a primary vector of insect introduction to the Americas, argued for the importance of recurring introductions of breeding pairs in successful colonization, and demonstrated the importance of examining a broad range of species introductions, not just those that directly mattered to human history. Conceived and executed in the context of the Cold War, Lindroth’s project benefited from governmental and institutional support that sought to promote transatlantic scientific cooperation and northern research. His path to researching and writing Faunal Connections reveals both the influence of geopolitics in shaping environmental ideas and the capacity for scientists to benefit from strategic funding opportunities while contributing little of strategic value. Lindroth’s work deserves reexamination, both for its substance and for what it can tell us about the ideas behind foundational texts like The Columbian Exchange and, indeed, the making of ideas about global ecological change.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB028448046/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Giulia Rispoli; Doubravka Olšáková; (2020)
Science and Diplomacy around the Earth: From the Man and Biosphere Programme to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (/isis/citation/CBB832498939/)

Book Lockwood, Jeffrey Alan; (2004)
Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier (/isis/citation/CBB000750909/)

Article Citino, Nathan J.; (2019)
The Middle East and the Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB084361778/)

Article Germuska, Pál; (2019)
Balancing between the COMECON and the EEC: Hungarian elite debates on European integration during the long 1970s (/isis/citation/CBB490676602/)

Article Sabina Widmer; (2018)
Neutrality challenged in a cold war conflict: Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Angolan War (/isis/citation/CBB560772743/)

Book Sagarin, Rafe; Pauchard, Aníbal; (2012)
Observation and Ecology: Broadening the Scope of Science to Understand a Complex World (/isis/citation/CBB001421416/)

Article Jersild; (2018)
Socialist exhibits and Sino-Soviet relations, 1950–60 (/isis/citation/CBB312896155/)

Article Forsberg, Carl; (2019)
Iraq, the United States, and the long shadow of the Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB479739334/)

Article Karamouzi, Eirini; Chourchoulis, Dionysios; (2019)
Troublemaker or peacemaker? Andreas Papandreou, the Euromissile Crisis, and the policy of peace, 1981–86 (/isis/citation/CBB063853984/)

Article Margaret K. Gnoinska; (2018)
Promoting the ‘China Way’ of communism in Poland and beyond during the Sino-Soviet Split: The case of Kazimierz Mijal (/isis/citation/CBB841446460/)

Article Jan Zofka; (2018)
China as a role model? The ‘Economic Leap’ campaign in Bulgaria (1958-1960) (/isis/citation/CBB698728570/)

Article Elise K. Burton; (2021)
Rethinking Collaboration: Medical Research and Working Relationships at the Iranian Pasteur Institute (/isis/citation/CBB819471497/)

Article Vámos, Péter; (2018)
A Hungarian model for China? Sino-Hungarian relations in the era of economic reforms, 1979–89 (/isis/citation/CBB828056689/)

Book Jeffrey P. Stone; (2019)
British and American News Maps in the Early Cold War Period, 1945–1955: Mapping the "Red Menace" (/isis/citation/CBB115554224/)

Article Jan Zofka; Vámos, Péter; Sören Urbansky; (2018)
Beyond the Kremlin’s reach? Eastern Europe and China in the Cold War Era (/isis/citation/CBB048222699/)

Article Cohen, Alan; (2002)
Roland Trimen and the Merope Harem (/isis/citation/CBB000201157/)

Article Libby Robin; Jon C. Day; (2020)
Maxwell Frank Cooper Day 1915–2017 (/isis/citation/CBB742627209/)

Article Miller-Rushing, Abraham; Primack, Richard; Bonney, Rick; (2012)
The History of Public Participation in Ecological Research (/isis/citation/CBB001320029/)

Article Simberloff, Daniel; (2012)
Integrity, Stability, and Beauty: Aldo Leopold's Evolving View of Nonnative Species (/isis/citation/CBB001232543/)

Book Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing; Deger, Jennifer; Alder Keleman Saxena; Feifei Zhou; (2020)
Feral atlas: the more-than-human Anthropocene (/isis/citation/CBB006548296/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}