See Paul Harrison, "The Curse of the Tropics," p. 602. These variations make a
difference. Cf. Sah, "Priorities," pp. 339-40, on the great British peanut (groundnut)
fiasco of the late 1940s, killed, among other things, by the failure to reckon with fluc
tuations in rainfall (discussed below, chapter xxviii).
Wade, "Sahelian Drought," 234-37.
Kamarck, Tropics and Economic Development, 16.
This passage draws on Raaj Sah, "Priorities of Developing Countries," p. 337.
Bandyopadhyaya, Climate and World Order, p. vi.
CHAPTER 2
Tortella, "Patterns of Economic Retardation and Recovery in South-western Eu
rope."
"Speech on Mr. Fox's East India Bill," 1 December 1783.
Charlene L. Fu, "China Paper Details Risk of Hepatitis in Transfusions," Boston
Globe, 30 lune 1993, p. 2.
On the implications of disease and malnutrition for economic performance, see
Alan Berg, "Malnutrition and National Development," pp. 126-29.
Oshima, Economic Growth, p. 21.
Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers, p. 23.
Leeming, Changing Geography, pp. 11-12. Some 65 percent of China is moun
tain, hill, and plateau.
Cited in Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, p. 37.
From the Chin History, cited by Elvin, ibid., p. 39.
The Wei History (compiled in the sixth century by Wei Shou), cited by Elvin, op.
cit., p. 45.
Jones, European Miracle.
Chang, "Agricultural Potential," p. 338. On the other hand, Debeir, etal., In the
Servitude of Power, p. 47, give paddy (unhusked rice) as superior to wheat and corn
"because of the quality of its proteins and its richness in essential amino acids."
Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power.
Thus Chi Ch'ao-ting, Key Economic Areas in Chinese History, who tells a story of
food and politics: he who controlled the big granaries held the key to the kingdom.
March, The Idea of China, pp. 94-95.
Cf. Stevens, "The High Risks of Denying Rivers Their Flood Plains."
Debeir, et al., In the Servitude of Power, p. 50.
CHAPTER 3
Cf. Kautsky, Politics of Aristocratic Empires; Richard Landes, "While God Tarried"
(forthcoming).
Tract on the Popery Laws.
Michael Cook, "Islam: A Comment," in Baechler et al., eds., Europe and the Rise
of Capitalism, p. 134.
Cf. Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies, pp. 161-62, who stresses the plurality of the
barbarian strike forces that brought down the Western empire and the consequent plu
rality of political and, I would add, cultural and linguistic units. The one unified en
tity was the Church, with its more or less common language, and the pope, Crone
points out, had no interest in promoting a secular rival.
As cited in Levi, Le grand empereur, p. 187. This is a novel, but it draws heavily
and often verbatim from contemporary documents.
Balazs, La bureaucratie céleste, pp. 22-23. Cf. John Fairbank, who speaks of "Ori
ental" societies, "organized under centralized monolithic governments in which the
