A World Trimmed with Fur : Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule / Jonathan Schlesinger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schlesinger, Jonathan, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Luxuries--China--History--18th century.

Luxuries.

Luxuries--China--History--19th century.

Natural resources--China--Manchuria--History.

Natural resources.

Natural resources--Mongolia--History.

Restoration ecology--China--Manchuria--History.

Restoration ecology.

Restoration ecology--Mongolia--History.

China--Kings and rulers--Social life and customs.

China.

China--History--Qing dynasty, 1644-1912.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Transcription Conventions

Introduction

One. The View from Beijing

Two. Pearl Thieves and Perfect Order

Three. The Mushroom Crisis

Four. Nature in the Land of Fur

Conclusion

Appendix. Fur Tribute Submissions, 1771–1910

Notes

List of Chinese Terms

Works Cited

INDEX

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

9781503600683

1503600688

OCLC:

1178770325