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China : its environment and history / Robert B. Marks.
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Title:China : its environment and history / Robert B. Marks.
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Author/Creator:Marks, Robert B., 1949-
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Published/Created:Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, ©2012.
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Holdings
Holdings Record Display
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Location:
c.1
Temporarily shelved at KOERNER LIBRARY reserve collection (Floor 3)Where is this?
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Call Number: GF656 .M37 2012
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Number of Items:1
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Status:Available
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Location:
c.1
Temporarily shelved at KOERNER LIBRARY reserve collection (Floor 3)Where is this?
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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.
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Description:xxi, 438 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.
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Series:World social change.
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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.
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Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-407) and index.
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ISBN:9781442212756 (cloth : alk. paper)
1442212756 (cloth : alk. paper)
9781442212770 (electronic)
1442212772 (electronic)
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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.