Brian Lander

Brian Lander is an environmental historian of China. He uses textual, archaeological and paleoecological evidence to study the long history of how humans gradually transformed the forests and wetlands of the core regions of Chinese civilization into farmland. This involves studying long-lost ecosystems and their disappeared wildlife as well as the history of agriculture, silviculture and aquaculture. His first book The King’s Harvest explored the ecology of China’s early political systems, showing they had to transform their environments in order to gain the resources they needed to build their power, and once they were established, they became key forces in subsequent environmental change. Lander has also written on the history of water control and deforestation in early China, and has co-authored papers on the histories of pigs, cattle, deer, and soybeans.

He is currently interested in the environmental history of China’s early empires, namely the Qin, Han and the Three Kingdoms. While these empires are comparable in size, population, and historical significance to the Roman Empire which ruled the other end of the continent, scholars have done far less work on their environments. From the densely populated plains of the Yellow River valley to colonial frontiers that stretched across vast regions, the empire had a substantial environmental impact. Lander is particularly interested in the lowlands of the Yangtze River valley, whose indigenous cultures were swamped by Han Chinese culture but whose swampy agriculture resisted colonization as wet rice paddies were instead incorporated into Chinese culture and cuisine. The story of how the early empires transformed this region’s society and culture is something he hopes to tell in his current work.

Lander received his PhD from Columbia University in 2015 and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard University Center for the Environment before taking up his position at Brown University, where he teaches environmental history. He spent five years in China along the way. He is currently co-editing a book called China’s Environmental History: A Reader, forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

Publications link: https://vivo.brown.edu/display/blander#Publications