Taming China's Wilderness

Taming China's Wilderness PDF Author: Patrick Fuliang Shan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317046838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, historically known as Northern Manchuria, remained a sparsely populated territory on the northeastern frontier. For about two centuries, the rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) - whose historical homeland was in Manchuria - enforced a policy that prohibited Chinese immigration and settlement and maintained the region’s reputation as the Great Northern Wilderness. Yet, as this new study demonstrates, by the early 20th century the Chinese government reversed its previous policy and began to encourage immigration into Heilongjiang, turning a backwater into a thriving frontier region. Covering the period between the reversal of the anti-immigration policy around 1900 and the Japanese occupation of Heilongjiang in 1931, this book investigates this distinctive frontier and the impact upon it of the settlement of four million Chinese settlers during a thirty-one year period. Following an introduction providing a background to the period covered, the study is divided into five chapters. The first chapter looks at patterns of immigrations, settlement and the features of the newly developing frontier society. Chapter two then deals with land possession, tenure and relations amongst the newly arrived settlers. The third chapter discusses the transformation of the ethnic make-up of the region, and the move from a largely nomadic culture to one of settled farmers. Chapter four probes the social problems these changes caused, particularly banditry. The final chapter revises commonly held notions about Russian dominance of the region, arguing that Russia’s influence was limited to the railway zone. Taken together, these chapters not only provide an overview of a territory undergoing rapid and sustained change, but also provide insights into wider Chinese history, as well as adding to the on-going scholarly interest in border and frontier studies.

Knowing Manchuria

Knowing Manchuria PDF Author: Ruth Rogaski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022680965X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
"Knowing Manchuria places the creation of knowledge about nature at the center of our understanding of one of the world's most contested borderlands. At the intersection of China, Russia, Korea, and Mongolia, Manchuria is known as a site of war and environmental extremes, where projects of political control intersected with projects designed to make sense of Manchuria's multiple environments. Covering over 500,000 square miles (comparable in size to all the land east of the Mississippi) Manchuria's landscapes included temperate rain forests, deserts, prairies, cultivated plains, wetlands, and Siberian taiga. Ruth Rogaski reveals how paleontologists and indigenous shamans, and many others, made sense of the Manchurian frontier. She uncovers how natural knowledge and thus "the nature of Manchuria" itself changed over time, from a sacred "land where the dragon arose" to a global epicenter of contagious disease; from a tragic "wasteland" to an abundant granary that nurtured the hope of a nation"--

Manchuria

Manchuria PDF Author: Mark Gamsa
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788317904
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Manchuria is a historical region, which roughly corresponds to Northeast China. The Manchu people, who established the last dynasty of Imperial China (the Qing, 1644–1911) originated there, and it has been the stage of turbulent events during the twentieth century: the Russo-Japanese war, Japanese occupation and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo, Soviet invasion, and Chinese civil war. This innovative and accessible historical survey both introduces Manchuria to students and general readers and contributes to the emerging regional perspective in the study of China.

State of the Continent

State of the Continent PDF Author: M. Fobanjong
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 194287636X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
What precisely is the state of the African continent today? Depending on ones perspective, the answer may either dwell on Africas recent economic and political accomplishments or focus on the long-standing single-story of failure, disaster and eternal dictatorships. This book provides a nuanced, forceful and balanced assessment of Africas political and economic performance since independence. While acknowledging Africas tragic pitfalls, dating to the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism, State of the Continent skillfully argues that theories associated with the dependency school are no longer enough to explain the continents failures in governance and economic performance. For a continent so richly blessed and endowed with both human and material resources, the blame for Africas lackluster performance falls squarely on its leadership. To get things right, Nkrumahs vision of the primacy of the political kingdom must be prioritized whereupon economic gains shall predictably, follow. In lucid and persuasive prose, this volume is an ideal book for scholars as well as students of international studies and African politics.

Taming China's Wilderness

Taming China's Wilderness PDF Author: Assoc Prof Patrick Fuliang Shan
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409463893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
For most of its rule, the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) - whose historical homeland was in Heilongjiang - enforced a policy that prohibited Chinese immigration and settlement and maintained the region’s reputation as the Great Northern Wilderness. Covering the period between the reversal of the anti-immigration policy in 1900 and the Japanese annexation of Heilongjiang into their Manchuko state in 1931, this book investigates a territory undergoing rapid and sustained change, and adds to the on-going scholarly interest in border and frontier studies.

Ethnic China

Ethnic China PDF Author: Xiaobing Li
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498507298
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
There are some serious concerns and critical questions about the on-going minority protesting in China, such as Tibetan monks’ self-immolations, Muslims’ suicide bombings, and Uyghur large-scale demonstrations. Why are minorities such as the Uyghur dissatisfied, when China is rising as a world power? What kind of struggle must they go through to maintain their identity, heritage, and rights? How does the government deal with this ethnic dissatisfaction and minority riots? And what is ethnic China’s future in the 21st century? Ethnic China examines these issues from the perspective of Chinese-American scholars from fields such as economics, political science, criminal justice, law, anthropology, sociology, and education. The contributors introduce and explore the theory and practice of policy patterns, political systems, and social institutions by identifying key issues in Chinese government, society, and ethnic community contained within the larger framework of the international sphere.Their endeavors move beyond the existing scholarship and seek to spark new debates and proposed solutions while reflecting on established schools of history, religion, linguistics, and gender studies.

Beyond the Amur

Beyond the Amur PDF Author: Victor Zatsepine
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774834129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Beyond the Amur describes the distinctive frontier society that developed in the Amur, a river region that shifted between Qing China and Imperial Russia as the two empires competed for natural resources. Although official imperial histories depict the Amur as a distant battleground between rival empires, this colourful history of a region and its people tells a different story. Drawing on both Russian and Chinese sources, Victor Zatsepine shows that both empires struggled to maintain the border. But much to the chagrin of imperial administrators, various peoples – Chinese, Russian, Indigenous, Japanese, Korean, Manchu, and Mongol – moved freely across it in pursuit of work and trade, exchanging ideas and knowledge as they adapted to the harsh physical environment. By viewing the Amur as a unified natural economy caught between two empires, Zatsepine highlights the often-overlooked influence of regional developments on imperial policies and the importance of climate and geography to local, state, and imperial histories.

Beyond the Steppe Frontier

Beyond the Steppe Frontier PDF Author: Sören Urbansky
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691208948
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
"Over two thousand miles long, the boundary between Russia and China is the world's longest land border. Though sometimes considered a backwater, the border region was always of critical geopolitical importance and has a fascinating history. Not only did this border divide the two largest Eurasian empires, it was also the place where European and Asian civilizations met, where nomads and settled peoples mingled, where the imperial interests of Russia, China, and Japan clashed, and where both conflicts and gestures of friendship between the world's largest Communist regimes were staged. This book is a history of this border from the late nineteenth century until the fall of the Soviet Union. The border has undergone a remarkable transformation since the late nineteenth century. As late as the 1920s, Russian, Chinese, and native worlds were intricately interwoven in the region, and the frontier was barely regulated. By the end of the twentieth century, however, the two countries had succeeded in cutting kin, cultural, economic, and religious connections between the two sides through deportation, forced assimilation, and nationalist propaganda campaigns. Only with the collapse of the Soviet Union would China and Russia reopen the border, but even today the line between countries demarcates two distinct regions with remarkably different worldviews and cultures. Drawing on sources in seven languages, including extensive archival research, interviews, and oral histories, Urbansky stresses the significant role of the local population in supporting, or more often undermining, the two states' border-making efforts"--

Wild West China

Wild West China PDF Author: Christian Tyler
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813535333
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Closed to the world for half a century, like a black hole in the Asian landmass, the wilderness of Xinjiang in northwest China is returning to the light. The picture it presents is both fascinating and disturbing. Despite a savage landscape and climate, Xinjiang has a rich past: sand-buried cities, painted cave shrines, rare creatures, and wonderfully preserved mummies of European appearance. Their descendants, the Uighurs, still farm the tranquil oases that ring the dreaded Taklamakan, the world's second largest sand desert, and the Kazakh and Kirghiz herdsmen still roam the mountains. The region's history, however, has been punctuated by violence, usually provoked by ambitious outsiders--nomad chieftains from the north, Muslim emirs from Central Asia, Russian generals, or warlords from inner China. The Chinese regard the far west as a barbarian land. Only in the 1760s did they subdue it, and even then their rule was repeatedly broken. Compared with the Russians' conquest of Siberia, or the Americans' trek west, China's colonization of Xinjiang has been late and difficult. The Communists have done most to develop it, as a penal colony, as a buffer against invasion, and as a supplier of raw materials and living space for an overpopulated country. But what China sees as its property, the Uighurs regard as theft by an alien occupier. Tension has led to violence and savage reprisals. This portrait of Xinjiang should be essential reading for travelers and for anyone interested in today's China and the fate of minority peoples.

China: An Interpretive History

China: An Interpretive History PDF Author: Joseph Levenson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520318943
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.

The Profits of Nature

The Profits of Nature PDF Author: Peter B. Lavelle
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550952
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
In the nineteenth century, the Qing empire experienced a period of profound turmoil caused by an unprecedented conjunction of natural disasters, domestic rebellions, and foreign incursions. The imperial government responded to these calamities by introducing an array of new policies and institutions to bolster its power across its massive territories. In the process, Qing officials launched campaigns for natural resource development, seeking to take advantage of the unexploited lands, waters, and minerals of the empire’s vast hinterlands and borderlands. In this book, Peter B. Lavelle uses the life and career of Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtang (1812–1885) as a lens to explore the environmental history of this era. Although known for his pacification campaigns against rebel movements, Zuo was at the forefront of the nineteenth-century quest for natural resources. Influenced by his knowledge of nature, geography, and technology, he created government bureaus and oversaw state-funded projects to improve agriculture, sericulture, and other industries in territories across the empire. His work forged new patterns of colonial development in the Qing empire’s northwest borderlands, including Xinjiang, at a time when other empires were scrambling to secure access to resources around the globe. Weaving a narrative across the span of Zuo’s lifetime, The Profits of Nature offers a unique approach to understanding the dynamic relationship among social crises, colonialism, and the natural world during a critical juncture in Chinese history, between the high tide of imperial power in the eighteenth century and the challenges of modern state-building in the twentieth century.