Book description
This inaugural volume in the Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History is the paperback edition of Conrad Totman's widely acclaimed study of Japan's environmental policies over the centuries.
Professor Totman raises the critical question of how Japan's steeply mountainous woodland has remained biologically healthy despite centuries of intensive…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Green Archipelago as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book was utterly sui generis when it was published in 1989; with it, Totman singlehandedly created the field of Japanese environmental history.
It also had a huge impact on me personally, showing me how I could combine my interest in environmental issues with my research as a historian. The book’s basic argument is that with such a dense population, Japan today should be an environmental wasteland, but it is instead a beautiful, verdant country thanks to sustainable resource use over many centuries.
Totman focuses specifically on silviculture (forest management) during the Edo period (1600–1867). Viewed in retrospect, his argument…
From Bruce's list on Japanese environmental history.
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