“Beattie’s monograph greatly adds to our understanding of the origins and development of conservation policies in the British Empire. … It provides the most balanced and through assessment of how global and local forces shaped conservation policies in the nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries. … This is an important book that will help to recast our understanding of conservation in the British Empire.” (Brett M. Bennett, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 14 (1), 2012)

JAMES BEATTIE has published nearly forty articles and chapters on Asian and Australasian environmental history, garden history, medical history, history of science and Asian art collecting, and sits on the editorial panels of several international journals, including Environment and History and New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies. He is Senior Lecturer, History Programme, University of Waikato, New Zealand.