Ever since the publication of Alfred Crosby’s landmark book 'The Columbian Exchange' over 50 years ago, the transfer of living organisms around the globe has featured prominently in the historiography of modern empire.

Whereas much is known about the ways in which exotic biota reordered terrestrial environments and agrarian societies, little attention has been paid to the analogous set of changes taking place underwater, which likewise sought to fashion new ecologies deemed more useful or productive than what nature had provided.

The talk surveyed the global transplantation of aquatic species in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the motives that drove it, and some of the principal effects.

Expanding the focus beyond the temperate to the colonial world, it argued that the primary characteristic of such aquatic introductions was the striking lack of knowledge surrounding them, which on balance served to facilitate such transfers rather than impede them.

This event was part of the event series "New Directions in Cultural Inquiry" and will be made available as a podcast.

Corey Ross is Director of the Institute and Professor for European Global Studies. His expertise focuses on the history of imperialism and global environmental history in the 19th and 20th centuries. His research on the socio-environmental history of Europe’s relations with the rest of the world builds on interdisciplinarity, investigates the global, transimperial and transnational circulation of ideas, goods and people, and aims to highlight perspectives that are relevant to major present-day and future challenges.