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    China : its environment and history / Robert B. Marks.

    • Title:China : its environment and history / Robert B. Marks.
    •    
    • Author/Creator:Marks, Robert B., 1949-
    • Published/Created:Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, ©2012.
    • Holdings

      • Location: c.1  Temporarily shelved at KOERNER LIBRARY reserve collection (Floor 3)Where is this?
      • Call Number: GF656 .M37 2012
      • Number of Items:1
      • Status:Available
       
    • Library of Congress Subjects:Human ecology--China--History.
      Human geography--China--History.
      Nature--Effect of human beings on--China--History.
      Environmental degradation--China--History.
      China--Environmental conditions.
    • Description:xxi, 438 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.
    • Series:World social change.
    • Summary:This book provides a comprehensive and comprehensible history of China from prehistory to the present. Focusing on the interaction of humans and their environment, the author traces changes in the physical and cultural world that is home to a quarter of humankind. Through both word and image, this work illuminates the chaos and paradox inherent in China's environmental narrative, demonstrating how historically sustainable practices can, in fact, be profoundly ecologically unsound. The author also reevaluates China's traditional "heroic" storyline, highlighting the marginalization of nature that followed the spread of Chinese civilization while examining the development of a distinctly Chinese way of relating to and altering the environment. And also, he makes the compelling argument that all of humanity has a stake in China's environmental future.
    • Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-407) and index.
    • ISBN:9781442212756 (cloth : alk. paper)
      1442212756 (cloth : alk. paper)
      9781442212770 (electronic)
      1442212772 (electronic)
    • Contents:Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Introduction: Problems and Perspectives
      Plan of the Book
      ch. 2 China's Natural Environment and Early Human Settlement to 1000 BCE
      Natural Environment
      Landforms
      China's Geographic Regions
      Forests and Ecosystems
      China's Climate
      Human Settlement and Pre-History
      Origins of Agriculture in China
      Rice Environments in Central and South China
      Malaria
      Yangzi River Valley
      Environment for Millet in North China
      Nitrogen and Fertilizer
      Summary
      Prehistoric Environmental Change
      Formation of a Chinese Interaction Sphere, 4000-2000 BCE
      Bronze-Age China: Technology and Environmental Change, 2000-1000 BCE
      Bronze-Age Shang State, 1500-1050 BCE
      Anyang
      Shang Social Organization
      Food
      Shang "Civilization" and "Barbarian" Others
      Environmental Change, 1500-1000 BCE
      Energy Regime
      Climate Change and the Fall of the Shang
      Conclusion
      ch. 3 States, Wars, and Farms: Environmental Change in Ancient and Early Imperial China, 1000 BCE-300 CE
      States, War, and Environmental Change in Ancient China, ca. 1000-250 BCE
      Nomadic Pastoralists of the Steppe
      Other Non-Chinese Peoples
      Zhou Conquest: Colonies and Forests, 1050-750 BCE
      Wars, Warring States, and the Creation of the First Empire, 750-200 BCE
      Iron and Steel in Ancient China
      War and the Use of Natural Resources
      Warring States and Non-Chinese Peoples
      Pastoral Nomads and Nomadic "Invaders"
      Summary
      Environmental Change in the Early Empire, 221 BCE-220 CE
      Han Colonialism, the End of the Xiongnu Steppe Nomads, and the Beginnings of Desertification
      Han Roads and the Opening of New Lands
      Empire, Agriculture, and Deforestation
      Water Control
      (Yellow) River
      Cities and Eating
      Imperial Hunting Parks
      Summary
      Ancient Chinese Ideas about Nature and the Environment
      Confucius
      Daoism
      Later Confucians
      Legalism
      Resource Constraints and the Control of "Nature"
      Epidemic Disease
      End of the Early Empire
      Conclusion
      ch. 4 Deforesting the North and Colonizing the South in the Middle Imperial Period, 300-1300 CE
      North China: War, Depopulation, and the Environment, 300-600 CE
      Environmental Change in the Yangzi River Valley
      Wet-rice Cultivation
      North and South Reunited in the Middle Empire: The Sui, Tang, and Song Dynasties, 589-1279 CE
      War and Water in Reuniting China under the Sui Dynasty (589-618)
      Grand Canal
      Han Colonization of the South and Southeast
      "South of the Mountains": Lingnan
      Southeast Coast
      Disease Regimes North and South
      Malaria in the South
      Contagious and Epidemic Disease in the North
      New Agricultural Technologies and Environmental Change
      Weeds and Fish
      Technological Diffusion
      Landed Estates
      Buddhist Monasteries
      Tang-era Attitudes (and Actions) toward Nature
      China's Medieval Industrial Revolution
      Colonizing Sichuan and Categorizing Others
      Organizational Context
      Chinese Views of "Barbarians" and Others
      "Cooked" and the "Raw"
      Animals
      Landscapes and Water Control
      North China
      Yellow River Water "Control"
      Environmental Decline on the North China Plain, 1048-1128
      South China: The Making of the Pearl River Delta
      Flood Control
      Fields Captured from the Sea
      Built Environment: Cities and Waste
      Urban Exemplar: Tang Chang'an
      Waste, Sustainability, and Nutrient Cycles
      Conclusion
      ch. 5 Empire and Environment: China's Borderlands, Islands, and Inner Peripheries in the Late Imperial Period, 1300-1800 CE
      New Historical and Institutional Context
      Population Size and Distribution
      Markets
      Climatic Changes
      Frontiers and Borderlands
      Southwest
      Ordos Desert and the Great Wall
      Seventeenth-Century Crisis
      Great Hunt in the Northeast
      China Marches West
      Islands and Their Ecological Transformations
      Hainan Island
      Island of Taiwan
      Land Cover, Land Use, and Land Ownership
      Exploitation of Inner Peripheries
      Highland Specialists: The Hakka and the "Shack People"
      Central Yangzi Region
      -Hunan and Hubei Provinces
      Lower Yangzi Highlands
      Ecological Limits of Empire
      China's Southwest and "Zomia"
      Debates over Natural Resource Use (and Abuse)
      Conclusion: Population, Markets, the State, and the Environment
      ch. 6 Environmental Degradation in Modern China, 1800-1949
      Chinese Consumption and Its Ecological Shadows
      Pacific Islands and Sandalwood
      Siberia and Furs
      American West Coast: Sea Otter and Beaver Pelts
      India and Opium
      Opium and Global Epidemics
      Opium and War
      Foreign Imperialism and China's Environment
      Ecological Degradation and Environmental Crisis
      Northwest China
      Huai River Valley
      Yellow River and Grand Canal Region
      North China Plain
      Yangzi River Valley
      South China
      Southwest China: Yunnan
      West China: Sichuan
      Tibetan/Qinghai High Mountain Plateau
      Agricultural Sustainability
      Mulberry Tree and Fish Pond Combination
      Resource Constraints, Environmental Management, and Social Conflict
      Forests as Food Reservoirs
      Into the Twentieth Century
      ENSO Droughts and Chinese Famines
      North China Famines and Migration to Manchuria and Inner Mongolia
      Fujian Forests and Forestry
      Fisheries
      War's Environmental Catastrophes
      Conclusion
      ch. 7 "Controlling" Nature in the People's Republic of China, 1949-Present
      Socialist Industrialization and Subduing Nature
      Socialist Industrialization and Its Material Constraints
      Depleted Soils
      Foreign Opposition to Chinese Socialism
      Big and Growing Population (Is Good)
      Shortages of Chemical Fertilizer
      Chinese Communist Ideas about Nature
      Idea to Control Nature
      Soviet Lysenkoism
      Post-Mao Reform Era, 1978-Present
      Breaks with Maoism
      Chemical Fertilizer Plants
      Population Control
      Changes to Forests and Land Use
      China's Official Forest-Cover Statistics
      Forest Ownership Regimes
      Collective Ownership
      Responsibility System of "Private" Ownership
      State-Owned Forests
      Deforestation during the PRC: "The Three Great Cuttings" Plus One
      Great Cutting No. 1 Great Leap Forward, 1958-60
      Great Cutting No. 2 Third Front and the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76
      Great Cutting No. 3 Deng's Reform Era, 1978-88
      Market-driven Deforestation, 1992-98: The Last Great Cutting?
      Grasslands and Desertification
      Summary
      State Nature Preserves and the Protection of Biodiversity
      Nature Reserves
      Recent Reforestation Projects
      Wildlife, Consumption, and Epidemic Disease
      "Controlling" Water
      "Harness the Huai!"
      Dam the Yellow River
      Environmental Consequences of Dam Building
      Huai River Runs Black
      Deep Drilling on the North China Plain
      South-to-North Water Transfer Project
      Three Gorges Dam
      Historic Dujiangyan
      Three Parallel Rivers Region of Yunnan
      "Develop the West": The Struggle to Dominate Nature Continues
      Conquest of Malaria and the Building of Dams
      Polluting the Atmosphere
      Powering the Economic Surge
      -Mostly with Coal
      Auto-Nation China
      China and Global Climate Change
      Tibet, Glaciers, and Desertification
      Environmental Protests, Consciousness, Activism and Movements
      Lake Tai and Crusading Villager Wu Lihong
      For Clean Water, Peasants Protest a Fertilizer Factory in Gansu
      Large-Scale "Environmental Mass Incident"
      State Responses to Environmental Problems
      Green NGOs
      Environmentalism and Democracy
      Return to the "Angry" River
      Can China Go Green?
      Toward a "Harmonious Relationship with Nature"?
      Conclusion
      ch. 8 Conclusion: China and Its Environment in World Historical Perspective
      Main Themes in China's Environmental History
      Changes in Land Use and Land Cover
      Climate Change
      Water Control
      Deforestation
      Colonization
      Simplification of Ecosystems
      Sustainability of Agriculture
      Problem of 1949: 3,000 Years vs. 30
      China's Ecological Resilience
      Driving Forces of China's Environmental Change
      Agriculture and the Chinese State
      Markets and Commerce
      Technological Change
      Cultural Ideas and Practices
      Population Size and Dynamics
      China's Environmental History in a World Historical Context.
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