Environmental History of China - Book Report/Review Example

Book Review Essay Student Name Course Code: Word Count: Date of Submission: Elvin, M. 2004. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven: Yale University Press. Introduction Environmental history is a major aspect in China because it is through the Chinese environment and landscape that people get to know more about China. Through environmental documentation of history, China lets the world read and know about its religion, politics, literature, aesthetics and sciences. In a contrasting aspect, Elvin gives a chronological documentation of farming styles in China that led to the elimination of elephants from their habitat. Elvin’s book, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (2004) is an important contribution to the field of environmental history. He gives an overview of Chinese environmental history over a period of time during which deforestation was prevalent in China and it was gradually pushing the elephants out of their habitat. Basically, the author's goal of writing on this subject is to give an account of the effect that deforestation has on elephants and the wildlife in general. To achieve this, the author incorporates historical geography of China, poetry touching on the environment, studies of water control, local histories in China and their systems of belief. He therefore nails the importance of environmental history as he complements the substantial literary works and essays of other international scholars. Summary To start with, Elvin Mark is a Chinese History professor at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University at Canberra. He makes an important contribution to the field of environmental history and he does this by dividing the study into three sections. In the first section, the author discusses patterns where he tries to give a bigger picture of the Chinese environmental history. By this style, he gets a reader ready and in a way gives them an idea of what to expect in the reading (Parsons, 2005). In the second part, he looks into the distinctiveness of overexploitation of natural resources. He draws the reader’s attention to the particular impacts of deforestation, especially how it affects the wildlife, elephants in this case. Finally, he includes to the reader the perceptions of the Chinese population. It entails how the China perceived and responded to the natural part of the environment. Son in totality, there is a chronological understanding and complete comprehension of the subject. Critique In the earlier times, most researches and publications went around the political, economic and social aspects. These are major subjects that comprised most of historical writings, most of which was done by European and American scholars, about other regions. Nevertheless, Crosby’s production The Columbian Exchange (2003) revolutionized the writing sector by opening a new field in the history discipline. Elvin builds on this area and his central argument is that the Chinese people have overexploited the natural resources, an argument that relies on the evidence of elephant forced movement to other areas other than their natural habitat. This is clearer in the third, fourth and sixth chapters where he discusses the resultant impacts on water and costs of system sustainability. Basically, he blames all of these on the human activity of deforestation. Lillian (2005) postulates that Elvin’s work brings a great deal of contribution to our understanding of how empirical and imagined knowledge during the early periods shaped the modern China of today. In the first section of patterns, discusses water control engineering by placing long term trends of deforestation in the perspective of economic change. The initial idea of felling trees was for purposes of cultivating the land apart from providing fuel and building materials. However, the particular effect of this that interested the Chinese people was the growth of the economy. Above all other things, they decided to compromise the natural environment for the betterment of the economy. There was, therefore, a continued economic and infrastructural evolution in China which came with an increase in the level of exploitation and resultant deforestation. Looking at how Elvin addresses this bit, it seems like he is trying to link it to the period of industrial revolution in which different groups and organizations scrambled for the control of other natural resources. Ideally, the modest advocacy of management of natural environment (Thomas, 2005) was replaced by selfish activities of gain. Just as recapture of the points of interest, the review focuses particular chapters that address water, cost of system sustainability and deforestation. It there focuses on how Elvin studies how human systems and activities relate or interact with the natural systems. Evidenced by his approach, this relationship is changing especially with regards to the natural biological and geological systems. Such an approach gives the reader the feeling or more of a realization that the subject of research and thinking stretches to other schools of thought and not a description of history only. One would think of this as the mass communication technique of agenda setting (Spring, 2002). At that instance the readers start to think of cultural compositions and perceptions, state formation and study of the Chinese population. More precisely, the author leads the second section where he discusses the particularities of water as a natural resource, deforestation as a destruction activity and cost system sustainability as the consequences of destructive human activities. Elvin uses examples to support his arguments to illustrate variations and consistencies. He talks about the state intervention which had the aim of transforming the economy to be dependent on large-scale infrastructure rather than exploitation and destructive means. Such governmental intervention involved reviving old water bodies, digging boreholes to resource water under the ground, managing and controlling water canals and tapping flood waters. The aim was to take control of natural resources from private entities and make them national resources for everyone. Consequently, there had to be establishment of policies to govern these resources. In individuality, Elvin writes about the people of Jiaxing who were forced into labor-intensive activities. Jiaxing is a region on the central east coast which suffered the overexploitation of natural resources and therefore lost its environmental resilience. The functional goal of teaching history in China is to foster patriotism and to allow the Chinese people lay claims of achievements on the actions of the building blocks of their culture. Patriotism has its ugly side but the Chinese culture has good grounds upon which it encourages the sense of the subject as a factor of national pride (Crozier, 2001). Historical documentation, therefore, helps to explain a lot about culture. Nauert (2007) brings a necessary contrast between the Western and Chinese cultures. The difference is evidenced by the difficulties and challenges that people from the western cultures have in understanding people and their points of view. This is so particularly because, by example, as the Chinese culture advocates for patriotism and nationalism, most western cultures like the American kind encourage individualism. The idea here is that history of a given community has a lot of influence on how a particular culture is shaped and understood. On the other hand, one person’s culture greatly influences how they perceive and understand another person’s culture, behaviour or even trends. More importantly to this review, Elvin looks at how the Chinese culture ogres with their perception of the human activities of deforestation have affected the natural environment and the wildlife as well. The author then takes to the third section of perceptions and tries to find out or the Chinese people viewed the natural environment. So according the Elvin’s evaluation, the people of China initially recognized the environment as a beauty of natural creation and they had to conserve it that way. However, later on there was a reconsideration and so they decided to exploit the natural resources for what it could benefit humanity with. It is all about the effect of culture on the perception of the world that is external to the mind. But then again, the world external tot e mind is really dependent on one’s ability to sense and notice the composition of the environment around them. This is as explained by Waxier (2008) who actually thinks that the relationship between an individual and the environment around them is quite extensive. For that reason, the level to which one interacts with their environment is dependent on how much they can sense and perceive of that environment. This then posts the environment as one aspect with unlimited ways to interact with humanity. Conclusion A critical review of this book in particular reiterates the essence of environmental history especially on the aspects of human activities, its effects and resultant consequences. The author therefore recognizes this importance and the need to understand culture as it influences perception of various aspects. Exploring the new discipline of history, Elvin writes the book not by spoon-feeding the reader but by letting the reader pre-guess or contemplate the next topic of discussion. He therefore draws the reader's attention from all other thoughts for a moment and leads them into focussing on environmental history in general. First, the author takes on documenting a four thousand long history and he chooses to do this in a sheer style. Effectively, he divides his work into two categories of pattern, particularity and perception. This is, once again, really effective because it explores the subject in a chronological manner. There is an introduction of the environment and activity patterns, discussion of the aspects of this environment in individuality and the finally an inclusion of the Chinese perception of it all. The essence of this is that after leading the reader into making their own conclusion about the subject, he provides the Chinese perception sot that the reader can compare their own and that of China. Interestingly, the author does not make reference to any other published materials. In effect, Elvin brings a new taste to the new discipline of history, which without much effort, induces the necessity of reassessment by other scholars. References Crosby, A. 2003. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Greenwood Publishing Group. Crozier, J. 2001. 5,000 Years of History. China in Focus. [online] Available at: http://www.sacu.org/historysurvey.html [Accessed 14 August 2013]. Elvin, M. 2004. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven: Yale University Press. Greene, R. R. 2011. Human behaviour theory and social work practice 1. Transaction Books. Lillian M. L. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China by Mark Elvin. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 65(2). 499-505. Nauert, R. 2007. Culture Influences Perception. [online] Available at: http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/07/13/culture-influences-perception/1011.html [Accessed 14 August 2013] Parsons, S. 2005. Units of Study to Help Children Plan, Organize, and Structure Their Ideas. Portsmouth: Pearson. Spring, S. 2002. Agenda setting. [Online] available at: http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~johnca/spch100/7-4-agenda.html [Accessed 14 August 2013]. Thomas, I. G. 2005. Environmental Management Processes and Practices for Australia. Annandale: Federation Press. Read More