Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World is an ambitious ecological, geopolitical, and cultural history of the Pacific World since 1800. In this impressive book, Gregory T. Cushman suggests that the harvesting of guano (nutrient-rich bird droppings) was central to the incorporation of the Pacific World into global history. Guano harvesting became a process of industrial dimensions only in the nineteenth century. During the Guano Age (1802–1884), the experimentation with guano and other related substances transformed agriculture in many parts of the world. Cushman suggests that these innovations were a prerequisite for the spectacular growth of human populations and industrial economies during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As if tackling this issue were not ambitious enough, Cushman follows the history of guano harvesting, guano islands, and guano-producing birds in time and space linking the history of Peru and a number of Pacific islands with the history of Great Britain, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. In the process, Cushman reaches a number of surprising conclusions. The Peruvian government efforts to administer and preserve guano-producing birds in the twentieth century influenced ecological thinking to an astonishing degree. Cushman shows how the dialogue between Aldo Leopold, William Vogt, and many other scientists and politicians were associated in one way or another with the guano enterprise, and influenced the development of ecological thought and conservation programs during the 1940s and early 1950s. Cushman also explores the mid-nineteenth century scramble for guano islands by the Pacific Great Powers. He illustrates how the United States used the 1856 Guano Islands Act to boldly extend American property across the Pacific. The latter announced the era of “neo-ecological imperialism,” which Cushman investigates in great detail. The quest for guano, coconut oil, and human labor opened the region to several forms of imperialism, with deleterious effects on the local environment and population. Throughout the book, the history of Peru and its relationship with guano harvesting and the conservation of guano- producing birds is highlighted, providing interesting insights into the role of climatic changes, in particular the role of El Niño and La Niña, in the booms and busts that characterized the Peruvian economy for the past two centuries.

The book starts with well-documented references to the importance of bird droppings and the sea to the ancient Andean peoples of Peru and with a thorough exploration of the Peruvian guano age. It describes Alexander von Humboldt's first encounter with guano and the rapid expansion and collapse of the Peruvian guano industry in the nineteenth century. In the following chapters, Cushman transports us from the Chincha Islands in Peru to a number of Pacific islands several thousand miles away from the Peruvian coast. In chapter 3 he discusses American expansionism, the “age of soap and water,” and their far-reaching ecological effects. Chapter 4 explores the transformation of Australia and New Zealand. These settler colonies were dependent on the fertilizers harvested in a number of tropical islands for their agricultural success. Pacific islands like Banaba and Nauru, were subject to major environmental destruction as a result. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the empowerment of technocrats and the transformation of environmental governance. Technocrats achieved great influence after World War I, “based on the belief that they could prevent the sort of conflict and scarcity that rocked the planet during the 1910s.” In these chapters, Cushman explores in great detail the new ecological and sociopolitical relationships that developed from these new technocratic efforts, particularly in Peru. The author focuses on the Compañia Administradora del Guano (CAG), which was the company in charge of the Peruvian guano industry from 1909 to 1956 and describes how the CAG technocrats engineered a remarkable revival of the guano industry based on the principles of sustained-yield conservation. Chapter 7 traces the evolution of Malthusian ideas, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the 1960s. Cushman explores the ongoing concern that human population might outgrow the environment's capacity and discusses how it justified brutal actions against whole groups of people or animal species in order to provide food security for the advanced world. The foremost example of this is the sacrifice of the Peruvian guano birds in the interest of the fishmeal industry after the Second World War. Chapter 8 explains how Malthusian thinking came to be applied to the problem of environmental degradation first in Latin America, then to the rest of the world. Chapter 9 examines the green and blue revolutions in Mexico and Peru respectively. Both revolutions had roots in the guano industry, and involved major environmental costs.

Cushman, an environmental historian at the University of Kansas, combines rigorous historical analysis with a thorough knowledge of environmental sciences to make an invaluable contribution to the fields of global environmental history, Pacific World history, and Latin American studies to name a few. Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World is a magnificent book that deserves a wide audience.