Forest history and the Great Divergence

China, Japan, and the West compared

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12876503
AutoresOsamu Saito (0000-0002-0697-9593, Hitotsubashi University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen4
Número3
Páginas379-404
Fecha de publicación2009-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Global History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1740-0228 • E-ISSN: 1740-0236
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1740022809990131
OpenAlexW2138520557
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas26

This article surveys changing interrelationships between humans and the earth's forest cover over the past few centuries. The focus is on the interplay between population increase, deforestation, and afforestation at both ends of Eurasia. Through the consideration of long-term changes in population and woodland area, Japan is compared with Lingnan in south China, and the East Asians with two European countries, England and France. Based on East–West comparisons and also on somewhat more detailed intra-Asian comparisons with respect to market linkages and the role of the state, the article examines the proposition made by Kenneth Pomeranz that, although both ends of Eurasia were ecologically constrained at the end of the early modern period, East Asia's pressure on forest resources was ‘probably not much worse’ than that in the West

Afforestation · Archaeology · China · Deforestation (computer science · East Asia · Economics · Economy · Geography · Great Divergence · Period (music · Population · Woodland · Demography · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Ecology · Forestry