A World Trimmed with Fur

Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule

Nonfiction, History, Asian, China
Cover of the book A World Trimmed with Fur by Jonathan Schlesinger, Stanford University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jonathan Schlesinger ISBN: 9781503600683
Publisher: Stanford University Press Publication: January 11, 2017
Imprint: Stanford University Press Language: English
Author: Jonathan Schlesinger
ISBN: 9781503600683
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication: January 11, 2017
Imprint: Stanford University Press
Language: English

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, booming demand for natural resources transformed China and its frontiers. Historians of China have described this process in stark terms: pristine borderlands became breadbaskets. Yet Manchu and Mongolian archives reveal a different story. Well before homesteaders arrived, wild objects from the far north became part of elite fashion, and unprecedented consumption had exhausted the region's most precious resources.

In A World Trimmed with Fur, Jonathan Schlesinger uses these diverse archives to reveal how Qing rule witnessed not the destruction of unspoiled environments, but their invention. Qing frontiers were never pristine in the nineteenth century—pearlers had stripped riverbeds of mussels, mushroom pickers had uprooted the steppe, and fur-bearing animals had disappeared from the forest. In response, the court turned to "purification;" it registered and arrested poachers, reformed territorial rule, and redefined the boundary between the pristine and the corrupted. Schlesinger's resulting analysis provides a framework for rethinking the global invention of nature.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, booming demand for natural resources transformed China and its frontiers. Historians of China have described this process in stark terms: pristine borderlands became breadbaskets. Yet Manchu and Mongolian archives reveal a different story. Well before homesteaders arrived, wild objects from the far north became part of elite fashion, and unprecedented consumption had exhausted the region's most precious resources.

In A World Trimmed with Fur, Jonathan Schlesinger uses these diverse archives to reveal how Qing rule witnessed not the destruction of unspoiled environments, but their invention. Qing frontiers were never pristine in the nineteenth century—pearlers had stripped riverbeds of mussels, mushroom pickers had uprooted the steppe, and fur-bearing animals had disappeared from the forest. In response, the court turned to "purification;" it registered and arrested poachers, reformed territorial rule, and redefined the boundary between the pristine and the corrupted. Schlesinger's resulting analysis provides a framework for rethinking the global invention of nature.

More books from Stanford University Press

Cover of the book The Social Imperative by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book The Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book California School Law by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book It Takes More than a Network by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Leading with Sense by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Twilight of the Mission Frontier by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Guilt by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Living Thought by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Julian Bell by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Coalition Challenges in Afghanistan by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Germ Gambits by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Costly Democracy by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Rice, Rupees, and Ritual by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Of Medicines and Markets by Jonathan Schlesinger
Cover of the book Criminals and Victims by Jonathan Schlesinger
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy