Is written and published in 2004 by a well-known Australian professor - Mark Elvin, who specializes in the economic, cultural and environmental history of China. Chinese environmental history lags relatively behind not only the development of other categories of Chinese historiography, but also Western environmental history. Mark Elvin gave a relatively concrete definition of "environmental history", stating that "[it], in the sense used here, is limited to the period for which documentary evidence exists to give us access to how humans and the women thought. Its theme is the changing relationship between humans and the biological, chemical, and geological systems that supported and threatened them in complex ways. In precise terms: climates, rocks and minerals, soils, water, trees and plants, animals and birds, insects and, at the root of almost everything, microbes. All of these are, in various ways, both essential friends and, sometimes, mortal enemies. Technologies, economies, social and political institutions, as well as beliefs, perceptions, knowledge and representations continually interacted with this natural context. (P.XX) In other words, environmental history is inseparable from any kind of human history. The environment and humans are complementary to form the story, but sometimes they contradict each other. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In this book, Mark Elvin attempts to illustrate the relationship between the elephant retreat route and human activities. He constructed it in three sections, including “Patterns,” “Particularities,” and “Perceptions.” The first part would be relatively descriptive and factual information about the changing route of elephants from northern China, better known today as Beijing as the capital, gradually retreating south and west, covering a period of three thousand years. of history. The second part contained three case studies in Jiaxing, Guizhou and Zunhua, which experienced a similar pattern of change, although they were characteristic and geographically different from each other. In the third section, an analysis of the perception and way of thinking of the Chinese with regard to the environment will be proposed. Last but not least, it would come to a brief conclusion that would reignite the debate on the degree of Chinese environmental pressure it exerted while drawing comparisons with the West in the 18th century. In the following essay, the main arguments will be summarized along with the three sections. As for the first part, “Models”, Mark Elvin gave a concrete topic sentence: “Chinese farmers and elephants do not mix”. (P.9) There are six chapters in total that make up the first part. In the first two chapters, a geographical and chronological framework is constructed to illustrate that elephants appeared throughout China and were not limited to spatial and temporal confinement a few thousand years ago. However, the elephants continually retreat towards the southwest zone from time to time. He admitted that climate change cannot be ignored to explain such a phenomenon. However, he then raised the question: why couldn't the number of elephants that retreated south due to climate change return to the same numbers as before when the climate returned to normal? The influence of civilization exercised by human beings being thus evoked as an argumentmain in the following chapters. As elephants retreated south and west, the expansion of human settlements and civilization as well as intensified agricultural development simultaneously dominated elephants' original livelihoods. Elvin outlined three models of human domination over the elephant's livelihood. First, deforestation in the name of agricultural expansion. The cultivation of crops is essential for the self-sufficiency of human settlements as well as civilization. As the population increased for centuries, the demand for flat land for agricultural purposes also increased, so deforestation was put into practice. Deforestation has arisen not only due to agricultural expansion but also to support economic development, such as the production of fuel for heating, cooking and industrial purposes, while a continued demand for wood for use in construction, shipbuilding or bridge repair infrastructure, etc. towards the environment since the chemical components of insecticides on polluted agricultural soils, which would create an irreversible environmental problem until now and beyond. Additionally, deforestation would change the ecological system, leading to flooding in lowlands or villages near rivers. Secondly, elephants were hunted by farmers to avoid loss and damage to properties caused by elephants. Some people haunted elephants for their ivory and trunks for profit, while others domesticated them for war or transportation. Whatever the sector of human activity concerned, most of them have been fatal to the habitat and way of life of elephants. As for the second part, “Particularities”, Mark Elvin highlighted three completely diverse regions, including Jiaxing. the one located in the Yangzi River Delta, the Guizhou located in the southwest region and Zunhua located in the northeast zone. Mark Elvin did research on the average lifespan of women in these areas. The research found that women in sparsely populated areas of Zunhua have a higher average lifespan than women in Jiaxing and Guizhou. They shared a lifespan twice that of Jiaxing Province, where residents normally lived between 18 and 24 years from around 1800 AD, and one-third that of Guizhou Province. In Zunhua, they had a mixed agricultural lifestyle that cultivated crops and raised livestock, which could be considered ecological and sustainable development. Compared to Jiaxing Province, the land is entirely used for agricultural purposes, so "there was almost no environmental resilience left in the system." (P.203) So, Mark Elvin is trying to say that sustainable form of agricultural development is essential for the betterment of human life. After giving us descriptive arguments as well as valid and concrete arguments in the first two sections, Mark Elvin attempts to provoke discussion in the next section, "Perceptions", by focusing on how the Chinese perceived and interpreted the environment. Elvin replied: “For more than three thousand years, the Chinese have reshaped China. They cleared the original forests and vegetation cover, landscaped the hill slopes, and divided the valley floors into fields. (P.321) The Chinese saw themselves as part of nature and the environment, but they reshaped them without hesitation in response to their political, economic, martial, or other goals to improve their way of life. The literati.