Coping with Calamity: Environmental Change and Peasant Response in Central China, 1736-1949 (Contemporary Chinese Studies) - Softcover

Zhang, Jiayan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0824841042 ISBN 13: 9780824841041

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press, 2015

Synopsis

The Jianghan plain in central China is shaped by its relationship with water. Once a prolific rice-growing region that drew immigrants to its fertile paddy fields, since the eighteenth century it has become prone to devastating flooding and waterlogging. Over time, population pressures and dike building left more and more people in the region vulnerable to its frequent water calamities. The first environmental and socioeconomic history of the region, Coping with Calamity considers the Jianghan plain's volatile environment, the constant challenges it presented to peasants, and the peasants' often ingenious and sophisticated responses, in the Qing and Republican periods.

About this title

Book Description:

An original history of the flood-prone Jianghan plain and how its volatile environment shaped the livelihoods of the peasants who worked the land.

About the Author:

Jiayan Zhang is an associate professor of history at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0824841042
• ISBN 13: 9780824841041
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304