This collection of essays was the first relatively comprehensive survey of the environmental history of China. Written by some of the world's leading Western and Chinese experts, Sediments of Time crystallises a new and distinct field of scholarship that studies what happens when human social systems interact with the rest of the natural world. This book shows how deforestation, land-reclamation, settlement, and water-control, when mixed with an ever-changing climate, shape a distinct and often precarious environment. Pioneering essays explore new methodologies of historical environmental research, comparative perspectives setting China in the context of the West and Japan, and the impact of the early modern ecological transformation on the spread of diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. This is an indispensable book for anyone who wants to understand either the foundations of modern China, or the deeper origins of many of China's most daunting contemporary challenges.

'Sediments of Time is an important achievement, a comprehensive and competent treatise on a crucial aspect of China's past that has enormous implications for China's present and future.' Journal of Asian Studies
'Sediments of Time is a pioneering effort in Chinese environmental history … [it] is an important addition to the scholarship on Chinese history and will no doubt encourage more research.' JOSA