Challenging the conventional wisdom conveyed by Western environmental historians about China, this book examines the relationship between economic and environmental changes in the southern imperial Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (a region historically known as Lingnan, South of the Mountains) (...), focusing on the period from 1400 to 1850.(...) Marks discusses the impact of population growth on land use patterns, the agroecology of the region, and deforestation; the commercialization of agriculture and its implications for ecological change; the impact of climatic change on agriculture; and the ways in which the human population responded to environmental challenges.