Sediments of Time

This collection of essays is the first relatively comprehensive survey of the environmental history of China. Written by some of the world's leading Western and Chinese experts, Sediments of Time crystallizes a new and distinct field of scholarship that studies what happens when human social systems interact with the rest of the natural world. This book shows how deforestation, land reclamation, settlement, and water control, when combined with an ever-changing climate, shaped a distinctive and often precarious environment.