The King's Harvest

As climate catastrophes happen around the globe, this is a fantastic account of the early history of environmental degradation across the north China plain from the first humans down to the unification of China in 221 BCE. This book connects social and political developments to the increasing and unsustainable exploitation of the environment in just this one corner of the world, but it's an important corner, because the north China plain is where a succession of major Chinese states had their capital cities. This is a depressing read, but also an acknowledgement of just how significant the impact of changes… show more.