This podcast episode features a conversation with Stevan Harrell about his recent masterful overview of China’s environmental processes from the twentieth century to the present. The author discusses how the ‘ecological history’ approach differs from more conventional approaches to environmental history. The conversation then touches on two of the many topics covered in the book, food and population, to illustrate the value of approaching the past through the concepts and frameworks of systems ecology. A variety of food-related topics are discussed, from the early struggles to feed China’s population, to the recent effects of meatier diets on China’s agriculture and feed imports, to alternative food movements among China’s urbanites worried about food security. Finally, China’s current population crisis and demographic decline are considered from an ecological perspective and taking into account the trade-offs between economic development and ecological resilience. This episode provides a brief introduction to a book that has been hailed as a “tour de force” and as “essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand China’s environmental predicament.”
Stevan HARRELL taught anthropology, China Studies, and environmental studies at the University of Washington from 1974 to 2017. He conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Sanxia, Taiwan beginning in 1970 and in Panzhihua Municipality (from 1988), Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (from 1993), and Jiuzhaigou National Park (2005), all in Sichuan. His current project is a history of agricultural change in Whatcom County, Washington.
