China: Its Environment and History

461 Pages·2011·5.863 MB·English

by  Robert B. Marks

UnitCinhgi Enuarope
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UnitiCnhgi Enuarope
Its EEnuvriorpoenamne Inntt eagnrda tHioinstory
and the Post-Cold War World
Robert B. Marks
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marks, Robert, 1949–
China : its environment and history / Robert B. Marks.
p. cm. — (World social change)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-1275-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-1277-0 (electronic)
1. Human ecology—China—History. 2. Human geography—China—History. 3. Nature—
Effect of human beings on—China—History. 4. Environmental degradation—China—History.
5. China—Environmental conditions. I. Title.
GF656.M37 2012
304.20951—dc23 2011036804
(cid:2) ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/
NISO Z39.48–1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Brief Contents
Detailed Contents vii
List of Illustrations xv
Acknowledgments xix
Chapter 1 Introduction: Problems and Perspectives 1
Chapter 2 China’s Natural Environment
and Early Human Settlement to 1000 BCE 11
Chapter 3 States, Wars, and Farms: Environmental Change
in Ancient and Early Imperial China, 1000 BCE–300 CE 55
Chapter 4 Deforesting the North and Colonizing the South
in the Middle Imperial Period, 300–1300 CE 103
Chapter 5 Empire and Environment: China’s Borderlands,
Islands, and Inner Peripheries
in the Late Imperial Period, 1300–1800 CE 169
Chapter 6 Environmental Degradation
in Modern China, 1800–1949 223
Chapter 7 “Controlling” Nature in the People’s
Republic of China, 1949–Present 265
Chapter 8 Conclusion: China and Its Environment
in World Historical Perspective 331
Notes 347
Select Bibliography 395
Index 409
v

Detailed Contents
List of Illustrations xv
Acknowledgments xix
Chapter 1 Introduction: Problems and Perspectives 1
Plan of the Book 8
Chapter 2 China’s Natural Environment and
Early Human Settlement to 1000 BCE 11
Natural Environment 12
Landforms 12
China’s Geographic Regions 14
Forests and Ecosystems 15
China’s Climate 18
Human Settlement and Pre-History 22
The Origins of Agriculture in China 23
Rice Environments in Central and South China 24
Malaria 27
The Yangzi River Valley 28
The Environment for Millet in North China 28
Nitrogen and Fertilizer 32
Summary 32
Prehistoric Environmental Change 33
The Formation of a Chinese Interaction Sphere, 4000–2000 BCE 36
Bronze-Age China: Technology and Environmental Change,
2000–1000 BCE 40
The Bronze-Age Shang State, 1500–1050 BCE 42
vii
viii Detailed Contents
Anyang 43
Shang Social Organization 44
Food 44
Shang “Civilization” and “Barbarian” Others 45
Environmental Change, 1500–1000 BCE 46
Energy Regime 49
Climate Change and the Fall of the Shang 51
Conclusion 52
Chapter 3 States, Wars, and Farms: Environmental Change
in Ancient and Early Imperial China, 1000 BCE–300 CE 55
States, War, and Environmental Change in Ancient China,
ca. 1000–250 BCE 55
Nomadic Pastoralists of the Steppe 58
Other Non-Chinese Peoples 62
The Zhou Conquest: Colonies and Forests, 1050–750 BCE 63
Wars, Warring States, and the Creation
of the First Empire, 750–200 BCE 67
Iron and Steel in Ancient China 69
War and the Use of Natural Resources 70
The Warring States and Non-Chinese Peoples 72
Pastoral Nomads and Nomadic “Invaders” 73
Summary 75
Environmental Change in the Early Empire,
221 BCE–220 CE 76
Han Colonialism, the End of the Xiongnu Steppe Nomads,
and the Beginnings of Desertification 77
Han Roads and the Opening of New Lands 80
Empire, Agriculture, and Deforestation 83
Water Control 86
The (Yellow) River 89
Cities and Eating 90
Imperial Hunting Parks 90
Summary 91
Ancient Chinese Ideas about Nature and the Environment 92
Confucius 94
Daoism 94
Later Confucians 95
Legalism 96
Detailed Contents ix
Resource Constraints and the Control of “Nature” 97
Epidemic Disease 98
The End of the Early Empire 99
Conclusion 100
Chapter 4 Deforesting the North and Colonizing the South
in the Middle Imperial Period, 300–1300 CE 103
North China: War, Depopulation, and the Environment,
300–600 CE 106
Environmental Change in the Yangzi River Valley 111
Wet-rice Cultivation 113
North and South Reunited in the Middle Empire:
The Sui, Tang, and Song Dynasties, 589–1279 CE 116
War and Water in Reuniting China
under the Sui Dynasty (589–618) 118
The Grand Canal 119
Han Colonization of the South and Southeast 121
“South of the Mountains”: Lingnan 123
The Southeast Coast 127
Disease Regimes North and South 128
Malaria in the South 128
Contagious and Epidemic Disease in the North 130
New Agricultural Technologies and Environmental Change 132
Weeds and Fish 136
Technological Diffusion 137
Landed Estates 138
Buddhist Monasteries 138
Tang-era Attitudes (and Actions) toward Nature 141
China’s Medieval Industrial Revolution 142
Colonizing Sichuan and Categorizing Others 146
Organizational Context 148
Chinese Views of “Barbarians” and Others 149
The “Cooked” and the “Raw” 149
Animals 150
Landscapes and Water Control 150
North China 150
Yellow River Water “Control” 152
Environmental Decline on the North China Plain,
1048–1128 154