The eminent China scholar delivers a landmark study of Chinese culture's relationship to the natural environment across thousands of years of history.Spanning the three millennia for which there are written records, The Retreat of the Elephants is the first comprehensive environmental history of China. It is also a treasure trove of literary, political, aesthetic, scientific, and religious sources, which allow the reader direct access to the views and feeli...

This volume is a collection of papers originally delivered by an international group of researchers at a conference organized in April 2000 by Dr. F. J. Brüggemeier and Dr. Wolfgang Schenkluhn. The World in the Year 1000 is organized in four thematic sections covering five world regions: Europe, the Islamic world, India, China, and Mesoamerica. All contributions in this volume are original works by many of today's leading scholars. Unlike most works on pre-modern world history, wh...