An Ecological History of Modern China, with Stevan Harrell — Part 1
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2024
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, Part 1 of a two-part podcast with Stevan Harrell, Professor Emeritus in Anthropology at the University of Washington. Steve's groundbreaking book An Ecological History of Modern China represents the culmination of a professional lifetime of work in disparate fields. It synthesizes ideas from geography, earth science, biology, anthropology, sociology, political science, and more. It's a book that will make you change the way you think not just about China, but about history more broadly, and about resilience in natural and social systems. In this first part, we focus on some of the core framing concepts of the book and how Steve demarcates China in both space and time. Part 2 is next week!
5:01 How Steve thinks about ecological history and resilience theory/ecology in relation to Chinese history
17:09 Social-ecological systems and the systems approach
24:46 The importance of etic and emic scale
30:15 How diversity contributes to resilience
36:18 The Malthus-Boserup Ratchet
42:43 The importance of buffers
51:24 The adaptive cycle
55:41 Ecological buffers and the threats they face] in the major regions of China: China Proper, Zomia, and Chinese Central Asia
1:06:28 Steve’s periodization of modern Chinese history from the perspective of ecological history
Recommendations at the end of Part 2 next week!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, this week, part one of a two-part interview with the scholar Stephen Harrell, |
| 0:07.4 | Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle. |
| 0:11.4 | We'll be talking about his fantastic book, An Ecological History of Modern China. |
| 0:16.9 | Our interview ran to nearly three hours, so I've decided to divide this into two more manageable |
| 0:22.5 | segments. |
| 0:23.4 | Next week, part two. |
| 0:33.7 | Welcome to the Cynica podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. |
| 0:38.0 | In this program, we'll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends |
| 0:43.4 | that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. |
| 0:50.2 | Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. |
| 0:58.2 | I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. |
| 1:02.1 | Cynica is supported this year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, |
| 1:07.4 | a National Resource Center for the Study of East Asia. |
| 1:10.7 | The Cynica podcast will remain free, but if you work for an organization that believes in |
| 1:15.2 | what I am doing with the podcast, please consider lending your support. |
| 1:18.8 | You can get me at Cinecapod at gmail.com. |
| 1:23.1 | And listeners, please support my work on Substack at Cynica.substack.com. |
| 1:28.7 | There you will find in addition to the podcast, |
| 1:31.2 | the complete transcript of the show, a weekly essay from me, |
| 1:34.2 | and now a wide range of offerings from some of your favorite |
| 1:36.9 | China-focused columnists and commentators like James Carter, |
| 1:40.6 | Paul French, Andrew Methven, and, of course, |
... |
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