An Environmental History of China
FAIN: HR-50349-07
Robert Brian Marks
Whittier College (Whittier, CA 90601-4446)
The goal of this project is to write an environmental history of China from antiquity to the present. The main question to be examined concerns the relationship of the Chinese to their environment: over the past 3,000 years, in what ways did the environment condition the ways in which Chinese used the land, and how, in turn, did that use change the environment? The methodology is historical, using Chinese and secondary sources, examining changes over time. This study will contribute to our understanding both of Chinese history and of the processes of environmental change, thereby enriching the humanities by reconstructing and interpreting the past and enabling us to make informed choices about the present and future.
Associated Products
China: Its Environment and History (Book)Title: China: Its Environment and History
Author: Robert Marks
Abstract: This deeply informed and beautifully written book provides a comprehensive and comprehensible history of China from prehistory to the present. Focusing on the interaction of humans and their environment, Robert B. Marks 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. Unmatched in his ability to synthesize a complex subject clearly and cogently, Marks has written an accessible yet nuanced history for any reader interested in China, past or present. Indeed he argues successfully that all of humanity has a stake in China’s environmental future.
Year: 2011
Primary URL:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/751922150Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 978-1442212756
China: An Environmental History (2nd edition) (Book)Title: China: An Environmental History (2nd edition)
Author: Robert B. Marks
Abstract: This deeply informed and clearly written text provides a comprehensive and comprehensible history of China from prehistory to the present. Now updated to include recent political events and scientific research, the book focuses on the interaction of humans and their environment. Tracing changes in the physical and cultural world that is home to a fifth of humankind, Robert B. Marks illuminates the paradoxes 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 and contacts with other peoples that followed the spread of Chinese civilization while examining the development of a distinctly Chinese way of relating to and altering the environment. Unmatched in his ability to synthesize a complex subject clearly and cogently, Marks has written an accessible yet nuanced history for any student interested in China, past or present, or indeed in the world’s environmental future.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781442277885
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes