McNeill J.R. Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean 1620-1914

A new cohort of historians is in the making. The new generation of historians is made up of men and women who analyze sources in fresh and new ways, and from new perspectives that were previously thought to be unimportant, or even impossible, like that of a mosquito. The perspectives that historians study and find the largest audiences, are today mostly are still tied in one form or another to postmodern thought, or empiricist method, and some to both.

Mosquito Empires is a book of ecological history, set in the Caribbean by J.R. McNeil, and it is creative, insightful, depressing, and a little maddening. The field of ecological history is relatively new to the profession of history, and in a world of overpopulation and climate change more histories of this type are sorely needed. When you combine the contemporary use of language, for example comparing a trans-Atlantic ships lower decks to a limousine for mosquitos, with slang, and a touch of sarcasm you get a narrative that never fails to entertain, and to a lesser extent teach its readers. Through; viruses, bacteria, ecology, and mosquito's McNeil provides new agents of change in human society. The scope of the study, ecological changes in the greater Caribbean may seem small to some observers, but it is made up for by the studies depth chronologically. Any change in environment, even one brought on by an outside actor tends to take time to shape a culture, or landscape. With the length needed to effect change it is no wonder that the author chose to make the breadth of his study almost a full three centuries.

McNeill focuses especially on Yellow fever and Malaria, both deadly diseases at the time, and both viruses that were spread by mosquito's. In his chronological semi-narrative based style he guides the reader through many battles and colonial power shifts throughout the Caribbean, mostly in the eighteenth century, and to a large extent his evidence is in agreement with the supposition that "the dismal record of medicine in the face of yellow fever, and to a lesser extent malaria, allowed these to infections to achieve geopolitical importance in the greater Caribbean for 250 years." (McNeill 63)

The author’s only real flaw, aside from assuming that mosquito's think, and have the same motivations that humans do, is that he neither acknowledges nor seems to recognize how much he attributes to luck. Luck is a factor that he ascribes to many different instances in his book without even a cursory explanation as to what else could have caused each given event, a behavior that could potentially trample on the agency of local indigenous peoples. Even theological perspectives of the native cultures that the author studies, and whether or not they believed in determinism, or God is not addressed. The validity of this book, with its type and temperament, far outweigh this oversight, and from this book we can glean the authors inspiration, imagination and healthy respect for the unknown, and possibly gain a little of our own.