Environmental Winds

Michael J. Hathaway argues that global forces are not simply born in wealthy nations and then spread outward to poorer ones. Drawing on fieldwork, he shows that such forces take shape through many local encounters that blur the line between the global and the local. The book follows Chinese scientists, government officials, villagers, and foreign conservationists who became entangled in environmental movements over roughly the last quarter century.

Hathaway traces how international environmentalism was put into practice in China and changed along the way, often producing consequences nobody planned. Among them are a growing movement for indigenous rights and new ways of relating to animals, including the wildlife that returns to farmland. Villagers describe these outcomes as "the revenge of wild elephants."

Written as an ethnography of globalization, the book focuses on rural China and also examines how Chinese developments have in turn influenced global environmentalism. It is designed for undergraduate and graduate courses in Chinese anthropology and history, environmental studies, environmental history, and global studies.