Skip to main content

Why Intensify? The Outline of a Theory of the Institutional Causes Driving Long-Term Changes in Chinese Farming and the Consequent Modifications to the Environment

  • Chapter
Nature’s End

Abstract

The examination of a hitherto little studied fiscal aspect of a problem in Chinese environmental history suggests that, in cases like this, environmental history does not have a clearly defined separate character of its own. It is inextricably interwoven with other disciplinary perspectives. In turn it makes its own, often crucial, contribution to the comprehension of the subject-matter studied in these other perspectives. To the extent that the example presented here is representative, one could say that environmental history is thus both everywhere and nowhere.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Amano Motonosuke (1962), Chugoku nogyoshi kenkyu [Studies on China’s agricultural history], Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (1973), The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (1982), ‘The Technology of Farming in Late-Traditional China’, In R. Barker and R. Sinha (eds), The Chinese Agricultural Economy, Westview: Boulder CO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (1993), ‘Three Thousand Years of Unsustainable Growth: China’s Environment from Archaic Times to the Present.’ East Asian History, 6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (1996), ‘Skills and Resources in Late Traditional China’, In D. Perkins (ed.), China’s Modern Economy in Historical Perspective, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1975, Reprinted in Mark Elvin, Another History: Essays on China from a European Perspective, Sydney: Wild Peony.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (1998), ‘Unseen Lives: The emotions of everyday existence mirrored in Chinese popular poetry of the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century’, In R. Ames, T. Kasulis and W. Dissanayake (eds), Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice, Albany NY: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (2001), review of K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence. China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, in China Quarterly, 167, Sept.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (2004), The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China, New Haven, Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. (2007), ‘Economic Pressures on the Environment in China during the 18th Century Seen from a Contemporary European Perspective: Insights from the Jesuit Memoires’, In Shiba Yoshinobu (ed.), Tôyô Bunko hachijûnen-shi [Eighty years of the history of the Tôyô Bunko], 2, Tokyo: Tôyô Bunko.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. and Fox, J. (2008), ‘Local Demographic Variations in the Lower Yangzi Valley during Mid-Qing Times’, In T. Hirzel and N. Kim (eds), Metals, Monies, and Markets in Early Modcern Societies: East Asian and Global Perspectives, volume 1, Bunka-Wenhua. Tübinger Ostasiatische Forschungen. Berlin: Lit Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M. and Fox, J. (2009), ‘Marriages, Births, and Deaths in the Lower Yangzi Valley during the Later Eighteenth Century’, In Clara Ho (ed.), Windows on the Chinese World. Reflections by Five Historians, Lanham MD: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, M., Fox, J., and Wen, T.-H., ‘Qing Demographic History. The Lower Yangzi Valley in the mid-Qing’, website http://gis.sinica.edu.tw/QingDemography.

  • Huang, R. (1974), Taxation and Government Finance in Sixteenth-Century China, London: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, F. (1911, revised 1949, reprinted 1972), Farmers of Forty Centuries, London: Cape.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leung, A. (1984), ‘Autour de la naissance: la mere et l’enfant en Chine aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, 76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddison, A. (2007), Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, Second edition: Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks, R. (1998), Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China, New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Menzies, N. (1985), ‘Forestry’, In J. Needham, et al. (ed.), Science and Civilisation in China, volume 6, Part 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muramatsu, Yûji (1949), Chûgoku keizai no shakai taisei [The social structure of the Chinese economy], Tokyo: Tôyô keizai shimposha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nankai University Department of History (ed.) (1959), Qing shilu jingji ziliao jiyao [Digest of materials on economics from the Qing-dynasty ‘Veritable Records’: QSLJJZLJY], Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rackham, O. (1986), The History of the Countryside, London: Dent.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shiba Yoshinobu (ed.) (2007), Tôyô Bunko hachijûnen-shi [Eighty years of the history of the Tôyô Bunko], volume 2, Tokyo: Tôyô Bunko.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, W. (1926), Die chinesische Landwirtschaft, Berlin: Paul Parey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, Y.-C. (1973), Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1950–1911, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhongguo nongcun diaocha ziliao wu zhong [Materials from five surveys of Chinese rural villages] (1933;repr. Taiwan: Xuehai chubanshe, 1971).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2009 Mark Elvin

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Elvin, M. (2009). Why Intensify? The Outline of a Theory of the Institutional Causes Driving Long-Term Changes in Chinese Farming and the Consequent Modifications to the Environment. In: Sörlin, S., Warde, P. (eds) Nature’s End. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245099_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245099_12

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-230-20347-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-24509-9

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics