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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Amano Motonosuke (1962), Chugoku nogyoshi kenkyu [Studies on China’s agricultural history], Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo.
Elvin, M. (1973), The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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.
Elvin, M. (1993), ‘Three Thousand Years of Unsustainable Growth: China’s Environment from Archaic Times to the Present.’ East Asian History, 6.
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.
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.
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.
Elvin, M. (2004), The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China, New Haven, Yale University Press.
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.
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.
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.
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.
King, F. (1911, revised 1949, reprinted 1972), Farmers of Forty Centuries, London: Cape.
Leung, A. (1984), ‘Autour de la naissance: la mere et l’enfant en Chine aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, 76.
Maddison, A. (2007), Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, Second edition: Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Marks, R. (1998), Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Menzies, N. (1985), ‘Forestry’, In J. Needham, et al. (ed.), Science and Civilisation in China, volume 6, Part 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muramatsu, Yûji (1949), Chûgoku keizai no shakai taisei [The social structure of the Chinese economy], Tokyo: Tôyô keizai shimposha.
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.
Rackham, O. (1986), The History of the Countryside, London: Dent.
Shiba Yoshinobu (ed.) (2007), Tôyô Bunko hachijûnen-shi [Eighty years of the history of the Tôyô Bunko], volume 2, Tokyo: Tôyô Bunko.
Wagner, W. (1926), Die chinesische Landwirtschaft, Berlin: Paul Parey.
Wang, Y.-C. (1973), Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1950–1911, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Zhongguo nongcun diaocha ziliao wu zhong [Materials from five surveys of Chinese rural villages] (1933;repr. Taiwan: Xuehai chubanshe, 1971).
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)