xiv Preface
In central China, the Yangzi River carries far more water than the
Yellow River and provides a major transportation and shipping artery
through the center of the country. Abundant rainfall and subtropical
temperatures in the Yangzi River valley make rice cultivation and double
cropping possible. The same rainfall typically leaches fertility out of the
soil in the Yangzi valley, but with the abundant application of human
and animal wastes, and with the long growing season and abundant
rainfall, the southern lower Yangzi valley has been the most prosperous
part of China in the last thousand years. In the upper Yangzi, the Sich-
uan basin provides fertile and fl at rice paddies watered with abundant
rainfall and irrigation from many smaller tributaries of the Yangzi.
A third river system, the West River in the far south of today’s
China, also fl ows from the Himalayas to the Pacifi c, but it drains a
much smaller area and has fewer tributaries than the Yangzi River. The
far south of China, with its rugged mountains, thick tropical rain for-
ests, and accompanying tropical diseases, was fully incorporated into
the Chinese state only in the last thousand years. This region is also the
home of the largest number of non-Chinese peoples, hill tribes, and eth-
nic minorities, many of whom originated farther to the north but were
pushed southward by the expanding Han Chinese settlers, especially in
the last millennium. The West River delta regions in southeastern China
enjoy abundant rainfall and a year-long growing season that allows
three crops a year. The four major centers of Chinese population today
are the eastern plains and deltas of the three great river systems and the
Sichuan basin in southwest China.
When looking at China in the context of world history, several dis-
tinctive Chinese traits stand out. Since the early emergence of civiliza-
tion along the Yellow River, Chinese agriculture has been the most labor
intensive and the most productive in the world. Wet rice production, for
example, is extremely labor intensive and also extremely effi cient in the
numbers of people it can sustain per acre of paddy land. Thus, the very
nature of Chinese agriculture provides a strong impetus for population
growth. Throughout most of its history China has been one of the most
densely populated areas on earth.
Some have argued that the labor demands of irrigation and water
management have conditioned the Chinese to be a collective-minded
rather than an individualistic people. Karl Wittfogel famously argued
that this “hydraulic society” produced a unique form of “Oriental
despotism,” in which the needs of the ruler and the collective always
took precedence over the needs and rights of the individual.^2 While
most scholars today reject any simplistic geographic determinism, it is