Sir John Hewett was an administrator in India, with a passion for big game hunting. He wrote this chatty memoir in 1938 when he returned to England. The book offers a detailed account of his adventures in the jungles of Tarai, Gooch Behar, the Central Provinces, and up north in Kumaon and Garhwal. In reading of his descriptions of his travels, we learn a lot about John, as he was known among friends. He travelled a great deal with his younger daughter Lorna, who was an intrepid hunter in her own right and even returned with him to India in 1926-27. The last chapter in this book is about Lorna's unchaperoned trek, to Leh in 1921. The book provides interesting vignettes of the social structures and cultural traditions of the days of the Raj. The photographs of the people the author knew, the maharajas and his colleagues and the author's staff lend colour to the readers' visual vocabulary of a bygone era.

This book is a study of the concepts of endangerment and extinction. Examining interlinking discourses of biological and cultural diversity loss in western and central India, it problematizes the long history of human endangerment and extinction discourse.

In an epoch when environmental issues make the headlines, this is a work that goes beyond the everyday. Ecologies as diverse as the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean coast, the Negev desert and the former military bases of Vietnam, or the Namib desert and the east African savannah all have in common a long-time human presence and the many ways people have modified nature. With research covering countries from Asia, Africa, and Australia, the authors come together to ask how and why human impacts on nature have grown in scale and pace from a long pre-history. The chapters in this volume illumine specific patterns and responses across time, going beyond an overt centring of the European experience. The tapestry of life and the human reshaping of environments evoke both concern and hope, making it vital to understand when, why, and how we came to this particular turn in the road. Eschewing easy labels and questioning eurocentrism in today’s climate vocabulary, this is a volume that will stimulate rethinking among scholars and citizens alike.

The Book Focuses On Key Landmarks In The History Of Indian Wildlife - Both Its Conservation And Decline. Chapters On The Ancient And Medieval Periods Sketch Out India`S Early Wildlife History. Nature`S Retreat Against Human Onslaught Over The Past Two Centuries, And Effrots To Reverse That Trend, Are Addressed In Detail. The Past Can Seve As A Guide To Options For The Present. It Can Reveal Strategies For A Future In Which Wildlife And People Coexist. This Book Ends By Looking Ahead And Identifies Workable Ways To Conserve India`S Vanishing Wildlife.

The figure of the white hunter sahib proudly standing over the carcass of a tiger with a gun in hand is one of the most powerful and enduring images of the empire. This book examines the colonial politics that allowed British imperialists to indulge in such grand posturing as the rulers and protectors of indigenous populations. This work studies the history of hunting and conservation in colonial India during the high imperial decades of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At this time, not only did hunting serve as a metaphor for colonial rule signifying the virile sportsmanship of the British hunter, but it also enabled vital everyday governance through the embodiment of the figure of the officer–hunter–administrator. Using archival material and published sources, the author examines hunting and wildlife conservation from various social and ethnic perspectives, and also in different geographical contexts, extending our understanding of the link between shikar and governance.