2 Books Like Healing with Poisons

There's a reason why this wonderful book is back in print! In this marvelous study of the craftspeople of Han dynasty China (approximately 200 BCE-200 CE), Anthony Barbieri-Low looks at the people who made the beautiful objects that now fill museums around the world--what were their lives like? Who cast these bronzes, wove this silk, threw these pots, painted this lacquer, and beyond that, who chopped down the trees and mined the metal? This is a fantastic account of the manufacturing processes that created physical objects, and wherever possible, the author has looked beyond conventional aesthetic approaches (isn't this a pretty thing?) to think about the much less lovely aspects of the lives of the makers and the troubles they faced, particularly when they were enslaved or criminalized. Go to any major museum with a good Chinese art collection and you can look at the objects these people made, but… show more.

As climate catastrophes happen around the globe, this is a fantastic account of the early history of environmental degradation across the north China plain from the first humans down to the unification of China in 221 BCE. This book connects social and political developments to the increasing and unsustainable exploitation of the environment in just this one corner of the world, but it's an important corner, because the north China plain is where a succession of major Chinese states had their capital cities. This is a depressing read, but also an acknowledgement of just how significant the impact of changes in human behavior on flora and fauna can be, and how things people view as positive progress in the moment can have a truly devastating effect on the environment (and the quality of human life) in the long term. It doesn't look good for us, and when contemplating the future,… show more.