Mao's War Against Nature

Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China
Erscheinungsjahr 2001
ISBN: 978-0-521-78680-5
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 306 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 540 g

Reihe: Studies in Environment and History

Judith Shapiro, in clear and compelling prose, relates the great, untold story of the devastating impact of Chinese politics on China's environment during the Mao years. Maoist China provides an example of extreme human interference in the natural world in an era in which human relationships were also unusually distorted. Under Mao, the traditional Chinese ideal of 'harmony between heaven and humans' was abrogated in favor of Mao's insistence that 'People Will Conquer Nature'. Mao and the Chinese Communist Party's 'war' to bend the physical world to human will often had disastrous consequences both for human beings and the natural environment. Mao's War Against Nature argues that the abuse of people and the abuse of nature are often linked. Shapiro's account, told in part through the voices of average Chinese citizens and officials who lived through and participated in some of the destructive campaigns, is both eye-opening and heartbreaking.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shapiro, Judith

Worster, Donald

Crosby, Alfred W.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. Population, dams and political repression; 2. Deforestation, famine, and utopian urgency; 3. Grainfields in lakes and dogmatic uniformity; 4. War preparations and forcible relocations; 5. The legacy.