Fir and Empire: The Forest Revolution in Early Modern China

From Cai Jing's reforms to Zhang Juzheng's "Single Whip Law," China underwent a "forest revolution" spanning the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. Countless giant trees not only created a thriving timber market, but also gave rise to the legendary Eastern navy. Did modern forestry systems originate in China rather than the West? Were the rise and fall of empires inextricably linked to the expansion and decline of forests by coincidence or necessity? This book's answers to these questions are enough to challenge Elvin's The Retreat of the Elephants, and its significance is comparable to Pomeranz's The Great Divergence.