Tools for Overcoming Crisis: Agriculture, Scarcity, and Ideas of Rural Mechanization in Late Qing China (2020)
In the second half of the nineteenth century, China experienced agricultural and ecological crises of increasing frequency and severity. This article shows how these crises fostered discussion among Chinese elites about the value of steam-powered machines for agricultural development. In the 1860s the expansion of wasteland and the rising price of grain in provinces destroyed by the Taiping Rebellion convinced some to voice support for introducing labor-saving machinery into rural areas. In the 1870s the drought that catalyzed the North China Famine persuaded others of the value of well-drilling machines to solve the problem of water scarcity. The growth of Chinese-language periodicals and interactions between Chinese and foreigners in China and other countries facilitated the acquisition of knowledge about foreign farming technologies and stimulated debate over their value to Chinese agriculture. Although proposals for rural mechanization were never widely implemented in this era, they are significant insofar as they demonstrate the ways these crises engendered new considerations of how to exploit the country’s land and water resources. This finding suggests that historians need to take account of such crises to understand the roots of industrialization in China.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Benny J. Andres;
(2015)
Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940
(/isis/citation/CBB020950855/)
Article
Emily Brooks;
(2017)
Number Narratives: Abundance, Scarcity, and Sustainability in a California Water World
(/isis/citation/CBB495193969/)
Article
Thomas Miller Klubock;
(2021)
The Early History of Water Wars in Chile: Rivers, Ecological Disaster and Multinational Mining Companies
(/isis/citation/CBB123904559/)
Article
Xu, Fei;
Mao, Shi-zhen;
(2005)
Historical influence of Chinese educational mission students on the development of science and technology in modern China in the Qing Dynasty
(/isis/citation/CBB000650794/)
Book
Dudley, Leonard;
(2012)
Mothers of Innovation: How Expanding Social Networks Gave Birth to the Industrial Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001201315/)
Book
Wishart, David J;
(2013)
The Last Days of the Rainbelt
(/isis/citation/CBB001420378/)
Book
Tim Stroshane;
(2016)
Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California's Central Valley Project
(/isis/citation/CBB260419535/)
Book
Paolo Bacigalupi;
(2016)
The Water Knife
(/isis/citation/CBB052570770/)
Book
Geoff Beeson;
(2020)
A Water Story: Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future
(/isis/citation/CBB415070926/)
Thesis
Hardy, Eric M.;
(2011)
Policy Drought: Water Resource Management, Urban Growth, and Technological Solutions in Post-World War II Atlanta
(/isis/citation/CBB001567270/)
Article
Claudio Robles-Ortiz;
(2020)
Modernization in the Periphery: The Introduction of the Tractor in Chile, 1910–1935
(/isis/citation/CBB796165958/)
Article
Todd Cleveland;
(2018)
Feeding the Aversion: Agriculture and Mining Technology on Angola’s Colonial-Era Diamond Mines, 1917–1975
(/isis/citation/CBB147103637/)
Article
Hyungsub Choi;
(2017)
Imported machines in the garden: the kyŏngun’gi (power tiller) and agricultural mechanization in South Korea
(/isis/citation/CBB015300129/)
Article
Karin Zachmann;
Nicole C. Karafyllis;
(2017)
Einleitung. Pfl anzliche Biofakte: Geschichten über die Technisierung der Agrikultur im 20. Jahrhundert [Introduction. Pfl alleged biofacts: Stories about the mechanization of agriculture in the 20th century]
(/isis/citation/CBB410173745/)
Thesis
Shealy, Gregory P.;
(2009)
The Mechanized Harvester in Imperial Germany: The Cultural Biography of a Single Transatlantic Commodity
(/isis/citation/CBB001562857/)
Article
Marx, Jeffrey A.;
(2012)
“The Days Had Come of Curds and Cream”: The Origins and Development of Cream Cheese in America, 1870--1880
(/isis/citation/CBB001320906/)
Book
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen;
(2018)
Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital: Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879-1909
(/isis/citation/CBB081623457/)
Book
Sanford, A. Whitney;
(2012)
Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture
(/isis/citation/CBB001201779/)
Article
Spiekermann, Uwe;
(2011)
Redefining Food: The Standardization of Products and Production in Europe and the United States, 1880--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB001033640/)
Book
Greene, Ann Norton;
(2008)
Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America
(/isis/citation/CBB001550729/)
Be the first to comment!