******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-rev...@lists.h-net.org> > Date: July 9, 2020 at 9:40:13 AM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Cc: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.org> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Asia]: Rangarajan on Zhang, 'The River, the Plain, > and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048-1128' > Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > > Ling Zhang. The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental > Drama in Northern Song China, 1048-1128. Studies in Environment and > History Series. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 2016. 328 pp. > $99.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-107-15598-5. > > Reviewed by Mahesh Rangarajan (Ashoka University) > Published on H-Asia (July, 2020) > Commissioned by Sumit Guha > > Given the salience of large dam projects and river engineering across > Asia today, stretching from the Yangtze and Mekong to South Asia and > beyond, this is a timely and deeply insightful work. Contrary to what > is commonplace logic, the control of river water flows with dykes and > embankments not only was well known in Song China but also played an > indirect and critical role in an environmental drama for over eight > decades commencing in July 1048. Drawing on a formidable range of > sources, Ling Zhang weaves together a tapestry of state action, river > water flows, and societal crises that makes one rethink much more > than the period of Chinese history she has studied. This is a rare > work where the epic scale is enriched throughout by attention to lost > and forgotten voices. Hebei Province, where waters broke loose and > played havoc, is central to the work, but it is looked at in a way > that "the stories of those _who lost in the game of history_ were the > hidden companion of growth. Dead bodies, hungry refugees, salinized > earth, disappeared streams and vanished trees," she writes in lucid, > often charged but meticulous prose, "had participated in the making > of history long before we were willing to address their existence" > (pp. 283-84, emphasis added). > > The breaching of the banks was a catastrophe for those in the river's > path: Hebei had no direct association with the Yellow River for > centuries but was to be intimately tied in with its tribulations for > eighty years. At the end of this period, the river abruptly changed > course never to flow this way again. The day it changed course was > catastrophic for many. Contemporaries who witnessed the catastrophe > recalled people "turning into food for fish and turtles" or journeys > a thousand li long (Zhang estimates it was five hundred kilometers) > with "roads full of corpses of dead men" (pp. 2-3). As many as eight > out of ten households had to relocate to save their lives and take > only the few belongings they could carry. The land was to a large > extent rendered desolate, with raging waters and large patches of > sand deposited on once fertile fields. This deep environmental and > human tragedy had a date, time, and place in an episodic sense. > > And it had deep roots; it is here that Zhang expertly brings > disparate elements of high politics of state making and the > technologies of river control together with the sociocultural milieu > of the times. The Song era has long been a subject of scholarly > inquiry. In the period 1048-1128, it saw a close connection between > the Yellow River and Hebei in a manner that the latter paid the > heavier price. The argument here is simple in insight though > multilayered in terms of the story. The Yellow River was controlled > via state-built dykes. From the mid-tenth century onward there was a > clear regional bias; the attempt was to secure Henan, the core zone > of the northern Song state, and to push the river waters toward Hebei > to the North. There were indeed floods in both the South and North, > but over time their intensity on the latter front only increased. > This pushing to the North was not mere oversight but arose from an > overlap of strategic logic and political power play where the river > was to be both object and actor. This study is a corrective to any > simple reading of the Song period as an era of economic growth by > perceptively bringing the changing ecology into the trope of > state-society-economy relations. > > The first Song emperor, Taizu, secured Henan and stabilized the > state, integrating Hebei as a peripheral region. The fear of nomadic > invasion led to investment in ponds to slow down enemy advances. The > advancement of the state was seen as vital to stabilize society. > "Given all this, the emperor called for Hebei's sacrifice and > justified the river's harm to Hebei" as early as 972 (p. 120). Prior > awareness and legitimation only makes sense if we tie in the shift of > the huge socio-ecological costs onto one region and its peoples to > benefit another, albeit indirectly. > > The deep environmental crisis was an outgrowth of such policies and > more important was driven by state intervention for decades. Whereas > the shift of the river in the early years of the northern Song was > important, the debates toward the mid-eleventh century were even more > significant. There was active debate on whether further strong > intervention was needed or alternately whether conservative > wait-and-watch policies were more apt. The senior Song official Wang > Anshi argued in favor of a strong, active, intrusive state to deliver > care. Zhang takes care to show that these policies when implemented > did more harm than good. > > Not all of the adverse effects were intentional but they often flowed > from the logic of intervention. Remaking the river entailed > engineering works, and though the technological details are often not > easy to trace even for so masterly an archivist, human and material > costs left traces in records. Tree felling, labor levies, and high > taxes imposed huge costs on the lived landscape as much as on the > mountain forests. In some cases, as in the denudation of forests in > the upper reaches of Sichuan and Shanxi, which increased siltation, > the indirect linkages were not grasped by contemporaries. Not so the > levies and immense costs of military deployments. > > The concept of China as a hydraulic state long propagated by the > historian Karl Wittfogel is here laid bare but is anything but > benign. The vast apparatus that sucked in capital, labor, and raw > materials did not tame the river but made the costs of suffering even > more uneven. In turn, far from calamity being an act of divine > origin, many specific hydraulic projects had impacts far more adverse > than any one at the time had reckoned possible. In this remaking of > the landscape and environments, there is more than a cautionary tale. > > The remarkable feature of this detailed narrative is its > contemporaries. "Can we break the cycle of hydraulic mode of > consumption" and do what the Song state could not, namely, to come to > terms with environmental constraints (p. 289)? At the center is the > vagaries of a polity whose immense ability to reorder people's lives > and remake the landscape sought stability at the cost of human > suffering. Most crucially, the very prosperity and stability of the > core zone of power hinged on the unmaking of the periphery not only > in economic but also in ecological terms. > > Zhang's work comes at a time of excellent historical work on other > Asian rivers, such as the Indus (_Blood and Water: The Indus River > Basin in Modern History_ by David Gilmartin [2016]), the Mekong > (_Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta_ by David > Biggs [2010]), the Ganga as water machine (_Ganges Water Machine: > Designing New India's Ancient River_ by Antony Acciavatti [2015]), > and the Brahmaputra by Arupjyoti Saikia (forthcoming 2019). But these > studies, far more familiar to me, focus on the last two centuries, > and the more distant past where it does occur is often as backdrop. > Zhang's own reference points are to Chinese works, yet there is deep > prescience in one respect. State making even a millennium ago was as > much about the mastery of turbulent elements of a natural > environment: floods and drought, locust plagues, and earthquakes, but > these cannot be viewed in isolation from policies or projects of > those in power whose action could exacerbate ecological degradation, > add to human misery, and do so via highly intrusive measures. > > The Yellow River is a key factor in this environmental drama, and > there is little doubt that as with the Indus, Brahmaputra, or Mekong, > its pasts and futures hold mysteries humans can barely master. One > wishes for more explicit comparisons with other societies and the > Song dynasty's time and ours. If modernity has longer, older roots, > do we rethink the environmental bounds of our own age? These may well > be the subject for another work. The interweaving of these three > themes--state making, river engineering, and the socio-ecological, > economic world--are here in the hands of a rare scholar whose > lucidity matches insight. > > Citation: Mahesh Rangarajan. Review of Zhang, Ling, _The River, the > Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, > 1048-1128_. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. July, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=49386 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
