Book ID: CBB163907239

Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China (2016)

unapi

In 1968, the director of USAID coined the term “green revolution” to celebrate the new technological solutions that promised to ease hunger around the world—and forestall the spread of more “red,” or socialist, revolutions. Yet in China, where modernization and scientific progress could not be divorced from politics, green and red revolutions proceeded side by side. In Red Revolution, Green Revolution, Sigrid Schmalzer explores the intersection of politics and agriculture in socialist China through the diverse experiences of scientists, peasants, state agents, and “educated youth.” The environmental costs of chemical-intensive agriculture and the human costs of emphasizing increasing production over equitable distribution of food and labor have been felt as strongly in China as anywhere—and yet, as Schmalzer shows, Mao-era challenges to technocracy laid important groundwork for today’s sustainability and food justice movements. This history of “scientific farming” in China offers us a unique opportunity not only to explore the consequences of modern agricultural technologies but also to engage in a necessary rethinking of fundamental assumptions about science and society.

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Reviewed By

Review Shen Yubin (2022) Review of "Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China". East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine. unapi

Review He Bian (2022) Review of "Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China". Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 265-275). unapi

Review Lynda S. Bell (2017) Review of "Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China". American Historical Review (pp. 818-819). unapi

Review Eva Sternfeld (March 2018) Review of "Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China". East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 91-95). unapi

Review Kirsten Moore-Sheeley; Christine Y. L. Luk (2018) Review of "Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China". Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 179-182). unapi

Review John Dearing (2017) Review of "Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 497-498). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB163907239/

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Authors & Contributors
Alessandra Landi
Metzger, Ellen
Curren, Randall
Giovanni Carrosio
Peres, Sara
Bathsheba Demuth
Concepts
Agriculture
Green revolution
Sustainability
Agricultural technology
Environment
Social justice
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
Song Dynasty (China, 960-1279)
20th century, early
19th century
Places
United States
China
India
Mexico
Arctic regions
Western states (U.S.)
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