解释中国历史的新思维:环境史——评述伊懋可教授的新著《象之退隐:中国环境史》

这是一篇对伊懋可教授的新著《象之退隐 :中国环境史》的评述 ,由三部分组成。第一部分分析了伊懋可的环境史概念、理论基础和本书的分析框架 ,认为它是经济史、科技文化史和环境史的有机结合。第二部分分析它的史料和方法论特点。史料方面引人注目的是诗歌、传教士回忆录和多种语言研究成果的吸收。在方法论上主要使用了跨学科研究、比较研究和综合分析与案例研究相结合的方法。第三部分提出了三个需要深入研究的问题 ,分别是人口增长与环境破坏的关系 ,介于文人环境意识和农业生产之间的农学知识 ,以及双向比较方法的应用等问题。总之 ,《象之退隐》虽然存在一些问题 ,但瑕不掩瑜。它是一部谁也绕不开的著作 ,在某种程度上预示着中国史研究的新方向

New Thinking of Interpreting Chinese History: Environmental History-Bookreview on "The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China" by Prof. Mark Elvin

This is a bookreview on Prof. Mark Elvin's "The retreat of the elephants: An Environmental History of China" which consists of three parts: The first is on the concept and framework which was characterized by the integration of economic history, cultural history and environmental history. The second is on the historical material and methodology. The very impressive material includes: Poetry, Memoirs of missionaries,and achievements of different scholars in different language, such as German, French, Japanese, Chinese and so on. The methodology includes: interdisciplinary research, comparison method,and combination of synthetical ananlysis and case study.The third is on some questions which, I felt, are worth further thinking about, such as the dialectic relationship between environmental transformation and population growth; the role played by agronomy, namely "three cai theory", in the production process; and the comparison method used by Prof. R. Bin Wang,Prof. Andre Gunder Frank, and Prof. Kenneth Pomeranz which is more comprehensive and reasonable than that used by Prof. Mark Elvin. In a word, This is a masterful, original and insightful tour de force.