Locusts of Power

Reviews / Votes

'It turns out that the locust can speak and Samuel Dolbee tells us how. Grounded firmly in the fertile intersection of Ottoman, post-Ottoman and environmental studies, this book demonstrates how human-pesticide relationships shaped the transformation of Ottoman Jazira: from 'desert' to agricultural land; from a place for the sedenterization of nomads to one for the forced nomadization of sedentary populations for genocidal purposes, and how the same land then became parts of post-Ottoman Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. It will become a classic and deservedly so.' Lerna Ekmekcioglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 'In this deeply empirical and eloquent book, Samuel Dolbee offers a history of a part of the Middle East that scholars have missed (or ignored)-the Jazira. Following Dolbee following locusts across this landscape opens up modes of political and environmental analyses that point the way for future studies.' Alan Mikhail, Yale University 'A fascinating and compelling book that takes seriously both the neglected space of the Jazira and the locusts as actors.' Jeanine E. Dagyeli, Agricultural History '... by tracing the movement of peoples and insects across this geographic region from 1858 to 1939, Dolbee reveals the Jazira's place in Ottoman and Middle Eastern history while also describing the limits of state power, the increasing influence of market forces, and the productive and destructive qualities of borders ... Locusts of Power succeeds, and brilliantly so, in evoking the first terms of its subtitle - borders and empire.' Dale J. Stahl, American Historical Review 'A model for the integration of ecological and spatial themes with questions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century population movements, borders, and state making. Any of the chapters would be an excellent addition to syllabi on the late Ottoman Empire and interwar period, and the first chapter is a particularly strong illustration of how pastoralism as a socio-ecology interacted with broader economic and political currents of the mid-nineteenth century.' Ethan Mefford, H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Online