Restores China’s place in forest history
Ian M. Miller is assistant professor of history at St. John’s University.
"Miller’s monograph, supported by solid evidence and compelling
arguments, enables the reader to explore this long arc of Chinese
civilization from the unique perspective of environmental
history."
*Choice*
"Offers a transformation of our understanding of China’s early
modern environmental history. . . a sweeping book. . . not only
tells a story that will have wide impacts for the field, but
manages to create an intimate look at what China’s forest
management system looked like to those trying to operate and profit
from it."
*New Books in East Asian Studies (NBN)*
"The concisely written chapters are packed with period surveys and
local vignettes, which give this relatively short book considerable
depth."
*Agricultural History*
"Miller has provided both historians of China and the environment
with valuable new perspectives and a wealth of information."
*H-Environment*
"With clear prose, detailed maps, and ink brush paintings from
primary sources, the book is a pleasure to read. Two appendices
explaining the research methods and sources will find an eager
audience among graduate students and other researchers.
Undergraduates will appreciate carefully selected excerpts. All
will apprehend that this book establishes new standards for
scholarship on the long history of humans and forests in
China."
*Environmental History*
"Ian M. Miller’s important book...has opened up a fascinating area
of research and it invites exploration by many more adventurous
scholar-pioneers."
*Journal of Chinese History*
"Fir and Empire provides a broad, long-term understanding of forest
management, contextualized and compared with practices in Europe
and in dialogue with Asian environmental history. It will change
the way scholars understand Chinese environmental history and
particularly the role of the state... This impressive book can and
should reach a wide audience of readers."
*H-Asia (H-Net)*
"Miller's Fir and Empire is a richly detailed study of private and
governmental forest management from the northern Song to early Qing
(ca. 1000–1650s), based on careful and extensive reading of
gazettes and other primary sources."
*Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies*
"Ian M. Miller's Fir and Empire admirably challenges the currently
well-established narrative of China's Great Deforestation through
an imaginative and meticulous survey of historical evidence…[The
book] demonstrates how a rigorous and creative approach to
historical evidence can yield new and exciting findings that
profoundly change our understanding of the past."
*British Journal for the History of Science*
"Miller succeeds in making this data-rich study readable, and it
will be of interest to scholars and graduate students in Chinese
history, environmental history, and comparative forest
history."
*American Historical Review*
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