Food and environment in early and medieval China PDF
Preview Food and environment in early and medieval China
22770 Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 6 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 1 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 ENCOUNTERS WITH ASIA Victor H. Mair, Series Editor Encounters with Asia is an interdisciplinary series dedicated to the exploration of all the major regions and cultures of this vast continent. Its timeframe extends from the prehistoric to the contemporary; its geographic scope ranges from the Urals and the Caucasus to the Pacific. A particular focus of the series is the Silk Road in all of its ramifications: religion, art, music, medicine, science, trade, and so forth. Among the disciplines represented in this series are history, archeology, anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. The series aims particularly to clarify the complex interrelationships among various peoples within Asia, and also with societies beyond Asia. A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher. Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 2 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 FOOd ANd ENVIRONMENT IN EARly ANd MEdIEVAl CHINA E. N. ANdERSON university of pennsylvania press philadelphia Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 3 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN 978-0-8122-4638-4 Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 4 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 To the Silent Gardeners “The tree of humanity forgets the labour of the silent gardeners who sheltered it from the cold, watered it in time of drought, shielded it against wild animals; but it preserves faithfully the names mercilessly cut into its bark.” —Heinrich Heine, 1833, as quoted in Gross 1983: 323 This book is dedicated to the billions of ordinary people, almost all of them nameless and forgotten, who domesticated rice, developed bread wheat, invented brewing, created soy sauce, tamed the dog, and otherwise discovered our foods, domesticated our crops, invented our basic food processing techniques, and created our basic food production systems—while their leaders, the famous kings and premiers and generals, waged war and massacred. The ordinary people of history gave us life while the leaders gave us death. It is the ordinary creative farmers and gatherers and food technicians who have won immortality. Their names are lost, but their true glory is deathless. “let us now praise famous men. . . . There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten. . . . Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out.” —Ecclesiasticus 44: 1, 8–13 Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 5 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 6 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 Contents Preface ix Usage xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Prehistoric Origins Across Eurasia 15 Chapter 2. China’s Early Agriculture 35 Chapter 3. The Origins of Chinese Civilization 55 Chapter 4. The development of China’s Sustainability during Zhou and Han 91 Chapter 5. dynastic Consolidation Under Han 136 Chapter 6. Foods from the West: Medieval China 152 Chapter 7. The Mongols and the yuan dynasty 182 Chapter 8. Shifting Grounds in Ming 243 Chapter 9. Overview: Imperial China Managing landscapes 255 Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 7 4/18/14 10:08 AM 22770 viii Contents Appendix I. Conservation Among China’s Neighbors 283 Appendix II. An Introduction to Central Asian Food 289 Bibliography 299 Index 331 Anderson_FoodEnvironmentChina_FM.indd 8 4/18/14 10:08 AM
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