Inventing Global Ecology : Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1945-1997/Michael Lewis. New Delhi, Orient Longman, 2003, x, 372 p., ills., map, $37. ISBN 81-250-2377-1.

Contents: 1. Tracking elephants, tracking ideas. 2. The gateway of India: Salim Ali, S. Dillon Ripley and the introduction of the new ecology to India. 3. Looking for the jungle: American ecologists in India. 4. Scientists or spies? Ecology in a climate of cold war suspicion. 5. "Modern" ecology comes to India. 6. Science to save the natural world: the ecology of conservation. 7. Indian science for Indian conservation. 8. All nature great and small: designing Indian nature preserves. Epilogue: conservation ecology crossing borders. Bibliography. Index.

"Inventing Global Ecology is many things in one: the story of an American researcher’s experiences in India and his country; a fascinating survey of biodiversity conservation (whose fortunes in India have been mixed); a thoroughly researched and documented study of the policies, prospects, and pragmatics of ecological and ethical decisions that ought to determine our future. It casts the U.S. in roles seldom seen—as partner and proprietor of global environmental projects.

"Lewis’ book carries amply relevant and analytical data besides a fairly detailed chapter on an Indo-U.S. initiative that has borne excellent results—the special relationship in human and scientific terms that developed through the 1950s and 60s between Dillon Ripley (of the Smithsonian Institution) and Salim Ali (of the Bombay Natural History Society). Ethnographic fieldwork and oral history, as well as traditional archival research, combine to give Inventing Global Ecology an edge, both general readers and specialists will appreciate." (jacket)

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