Contested Environmentalisms
Trees and the Making of Modern China
Published on 21. January 2025
294 pages
978-1-5036-4133-4 (ISBN)
Available for download
Description
For decades, tree planting and forestry have been pivotal to Chinese environmentalism. During the Mao era, while forests were razed to fuel rapid increases in industrial production, the "Greening the Motherland" campaign promoted conservationist tree-planting nationwide. Contested Environmentalisms explores the seemingly contradictory rhetoric and desires of Chinese conservation from the early twentieth century through to the present.
Drawing on literary, cinematic, scientific, archival, and digital media sources, Cheng Li investigates the emergence, evolution, and devolution of Chinese conservationist ideas. Combining literary, historical, and environmental studies approaches, he shows that these ideas acquired their value and assumed their power precisely because of their malleability and adaptability. Li historicizes authoritarian environmentalism and probes the global-local dynamics underlying conservationist ideas that energize environmental impulses in China. Examining ethnic borderlands, the Beijing political center, and China's growth on the world stage, this book demonstrates the strength of Chinese environmentalism to adapt and survive through tumultuous change lies in what seems to be a weakness: its inconsistency and contestation.
Drawing on literary, cinematic, scientific, archival, and digital media sources, Cheng Li investigates the emergence, evolution, and devolution of Chinese conservationist ideas. Combining literary, historical, and environmental studies approaches, he shows that these ideas acquired their value and assumed their power precisely because of their malleability and adaptability. Li historicizes authoritarian environmentalism and probes the global-local dynamics underlying conservationist ideas that energize environmental impulses in China. Examining ethnic borderlands, the Beijing political center, and China's growth on the world stage, this book demonstrates the strength of Chinese environmentalism to adapt and survive through tumultuous change lies in what seems to be a weakness: its inconsistency and contestation.
Reviews / Votes
"Cheng Li's Contested Environmentalisms skillfully analyzes central yet heretofore underexamined tensions and ambiguities in Chinese environmentalisms, expertly drawing on diverse forms of media to demonstrate changing yet nearly constantly conflicting attitudes toward tree-planting and conservation more broadly, from the early twentieth century until today. This deeply researched book is a must-read for students and scholars of China as well as of the environmental humanities and social sciences."-Karen L. Thornber, Harvard University "Contested Environmentalismsis an utterly original, creative, and compelling study of the advent of conservationist consciousness in modern China and its entwinement with China's struggle for modernity, ideological rationale, ethnic settlement, and the natural environment throughout the twentieth century. Li takes an unusual protagonist-trees-in modern Chinese literature and uncovers a rich, fascinating, interdisciplinary and layered history of how arboreal modernity figures at the heart of China's ecological awareness and assertions. In an era of eco-consciousness and fragmenting global culture, this is a vital read."-Jing Tsu, Yale University "Cheng Li has gifted us a brilliant account of the ecological, political, economic, psychological, and aesthetic dimensions to China's ever-evolving relationship with trees. Contested Environmentalisms offers a novel perspective that will excite anyone interested in modern China. The book will also inspire scholars in fields ranging from forestry to the environmental humanities. I expect Contested Environmentalisms to provoke many robust discussions, in the classroom and beyond. A tour-de-force."-Rob Nixon, Princeton UniversityMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Palo Alto
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Illustrations
32 halftones
ISBN-13
978-1-5036-4133-4 (9781503641334)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2025
Stanford University Press
€75.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Cheng Li is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at Carnegie Mellon University.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Arbor Day: The Rise and Fall of China's Environmentalism in the Republican Era (1912-49)
2. Selling the Forestry Revolution: The Rhetoric of Afforestation in Socialist China (1949-61)
3. Marching into the Desert: Planting Ethnic Borderlands in Mao-Era Ecocinema
4. Deweaponizing Forests and Engineering Nature: Militarization, Coming-of-Age Stories, and Science Fiction in the Mao Era
5. Great Green Awakening: Ecological Science and Chinese Conservation Literature of the 1980s
Coda: Arbor Day Is Every Day!: Virtual Arbor Day and Consumer Environmentalism
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Arbor Day: The Rise and Fall of China's Environmentalism in the Republican Era (1912-49)
2. Selling the Forestry Revolution: The Rhetoric of Afforestation in Socialist China (1949-61)
3. Marching into the Desert: Planting Ethnic Borderlands in Mao-Era Ecocinema
4. Deweaponizing Forests and Engineering Nature: Militarization, Coming-of-Age Stories, and Science Fiction in the Mao Era
5. Great Green Awakening: Ecological Science and Chinese Conservation Literature of the 1980s
Coda: Arbor Day Is Every Day!: Virtual Arbor Day and Consumer Environmentalism
Notes
Bibliography
Index
