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Forest history and the Great Divergence: China, Japan, and the West compared

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  • Saito, Osamu

Abstract

This article surveys changing interrelationships between humans and the earth's forest cover over the past few centuries. The focus is on the interplay between population increase, deforestation, and afforestation at both ends of Eurasia. Through the consideration of long-term changes in population and woodland area, Japan is compared with Lingnan in south China, and the East Asians with two European countries, England and France. Based on East–West comparisons and also on somewhat more detailed intra-Asian comparisons with respect to market linkages and the role of the state, the article examines the proposition made by Kenneth Pomeranz that, although both ends of Eurasia were ecologically constrained at the end of the early modern period, East Asia's pressure on forest resources was ‘probably not much worse’ than that in the West.

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  • Saito, Osamu, 2009. "Forest history and the Great Divergence: China, Japan, and the West compared," Journal of Global History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 379-404, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jglhis:v:4:y:2009:i:03:p:379-404_99
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    Cited by:

    1. de Jong, Wil & Liu, Jinlong & Youn, Yeo-Chang, 2017. "Land and forests in the Anthropocene: Trends and outlooks in Asia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 17-25.
    2. Tuan-Hwee Sng & Chiaki Moriguchi, 2014. "Asia’s little divergence: state capacity in China and Japan before 1850," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 439-470, December.
    3. Yanagisawa, Haruka, 2011. "Village Common Land, Manure, Fodder, and Intensive Agricultural Practices in Tamil Nadu from the Mid-Nineteenth Century," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 1(1), July.
    4. Sng, Tuan-Hwee & Moriguchi, Chiaki, 2013. "Taxation and Public Goods Provision in China and Japan before 1850," PRIMCED Discussion Paper Series 35, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    5. Mark Hudson & Junzō Uchiyama & Kati Lindström & Takamune Kawashima & Ian Reader & Tinka Delakorda Kawashima & Danièle Martin & J. Christoper Gillam & Linda Gilaizeau & Ilona R. Bausch & Kara C. Hoover, 2022. "Global processes of anthropogenesis characterise the early Anthropocene in the Japanese Islands," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Stephen Lezak, 2018. "Re-Placing the Desert in the Conservation Landscape: Charisma and Absence in the Gobi Desert," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-12, December.

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