Table of Contents

Conventions and Measures
Introduction
1. Agriculture in an Era of Crisis
2. Geography in a Growing Empire
3. Reclaiming the Land
4. Promoting Profitable Crops
5. Water in a Fertile Frontier
6. Sericulture in a Colonial Borderland
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Chinese Terms
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Peter B. Lavelle is assistant professor of history at Temple University.

Reviews

In China's impoverished northwest, farmers eked out a living on exhausted soils afflicted by drought and famine. Yet it was here, in this unlikely place, that the powerful Qing official Zuo Zongtang launched his most ambitious schemes to make China prosper. Lavelle makes a dramatic story out of Zuo's dedication to economic development. Deeply grounded in ecological and global perspectives, Lavelle's study gives us a compelling explanation of how Chinese officials have pursued wealth and power over the past 150 years.
*Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia*

Lavelle's extensively researched and skillfully crafted study is notable for its mastery of a wide range of late Qing sources and its ability to combine environmental, economic, political, and intellectual dimensions of China's tumultuous nineteenth-century history into a coherent and compelling narrative. The book also extends the implications of its argument beyond China by situating the subject matter within a broader global dynamic of colonial development.
*Micah Muscolino, author of The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938–1950*

Profits of Nature is an outstanding work that sheds new light on nineteenth century Chinese efforts to manage both manmade and natural disasters through the adoption of new technologies in agriculture, forestry, and industry, in the process transforming the heartland and borderlands of the empire. Lavelle’s groundbreaking book is a welcome contribution for Qing historians, historians of science and technology, and environmental studies.
*Shellen X. Wu, author of Empires of Coal: Fueling China's Entry Into the Modern World Order*

An eminently readable book that should be of interest to students and scholars in any of those fields. Its short length and biographical approach also make it easy to recommend for advanced undergraduate audiences.
*Agricultural History*