An Ecological and Postcolonial Study of Literature: From Daniel Defoe to Salman Rushdie

The Earth’s land and its inhabitants are in jeopardy. Ecosystems are threatened in every corner of the world. Neocolonial forces define human relations increasingly in fundamentalist terms. Land settlement patterns formulated during the colonial era have left more and more people on today’s planet without property, without the resources needed to sustain a livable existence, and with only a combative understanding of identity. This book argues that humanity’s relationship to the land has undergone a fundamental change, and reveals how the historical phenomenon known as the “enclosure movement” has come to have a profound effect on how we relate to the earth, and on how we conceive of ourselves as human beings. Analyzing narratives by Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, Salman Rushdie, and others, Marzec reveals the extent to which the legacy of enclosures continues to dictate the geopolitical reality of the present.