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Histories of climate and imperialism reveal the entwined arguments used to explain both the climatic determinants of empire and imperial aspirations towards climatic control. In the imperial debates we highlight, climate rarely represents a described natural force. Rather, in this chapter, we argue that climate is a philosophical and political category as much as it is a material category, one that was deployed by a diversity of actors in changing and sometimes conflicting ways throughout the British Empire and beyond. iStudies of climate have been produced by a wide range of individuals from foresters and medical practitioners, to ships’ captains and religious authorities. Understanding the relations between climate and empire has taxed the minds of both imperial authorities and those working and living under imperial oversight, yet postulating the precise relationship between climate and imperial control, however, has been far from straightforward. Work exploring the relationships between climate and empire must account for the complexity of this relationship by examining the ways in which imperial authorities both constructed and legitimated climate knowledges and by investigating the power of climate as a concept to shape imperial ideas and material practices. This chapter recognises the ever changing relationship between empire-making, climaticimpacts and climate perceptions.

To explore this argument, we first critically review the historical importance of climate in empire through examination of climatic determinism. Next, we discuss four key themes that are of particular importance to understanding the connections between climate and …