Empire and Environment in the Making of Manchuria

This compelling analysis of Manchuria’s environmental history illustrates the relationship between empire building and the natural world in a region shaped by Chinese, Japanese, Manchu, Russian, and other imperial forces.

Norman Smith is a professor of history at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Intoxicating Manchuria: Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China’s Northeast and Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese Occupation, which was awarded the Canadian Women’s Studies Association 2008 Book Prize.

Contributors: David A. Bello, Blaine Chiasson, Annika A. Culver, Loretta E. Kim, Diana Lary, Kathryn Meyer, Wang Ning, Norman Smith, Ronald Suleski, and Sun Xiaoping.

Overall, Empire and Environment provides a rich array of scholarship that demonstrates the dynamic relationship between Manchuria’s natural environment and a variety of distinctive cultures and political regimes over time.