Micah S. Muscolino

Bio: Micah S. Muscolino is an academic researcher from University of California, San Diego. The author has contributed to research in topics: China & Soil conservation. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 15 publications receiving 113 citations. Previous affiliations of Micah S. Muscolino include Saint Mary's College of California & Georgetown University.

Tianshui's Three Treasures: Water and Soil Conservation in Wartime Northwest China

Abstract: In addition to examining how wartime imperatives shaped the agricultural research, demonstration, and extension programs undertaken by the Nationalist government’s Tianshui Water and Soil Conservat...

Transform the Land, Train the Youth: Water and Soil Conservation Teams and State-Induced Migration in mid-1960s China

Abstract: Beginning in 1964, the PRC party-state orchestrated the resettlement of thousands of young people from cities to erosion-prone areas in China's Loess Plateau to form “water and soil conservation teams” (shuitu baochi zhuanyedui). Although their ostensible mission was to limit erosion by building terraces and planting trees, documents related to conservation teams emphasized their capacity to thoroughly reform urban youth while mobilizing them to do the work of remaking the environment. Provincial and county archives, along with fieldwork conducted at the site of one water and soil conservation team in Shaanxi province's Baishui county, indicate that conservation teams did not realize either of these objectives. Due to urban youth's inexperience with agriculture and conservation, they did little to promote environmental management. At the same time, unruly teenagers who migrated to the countryside to join conservation teams, as well as the cadres who oversaw them, continued to engage in transgressive behavior.

Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market and Environment Decline, 1690s‐1990s

Abstract: @fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Tables iii List of Illustrations iii Acknowledgments iii @toc2:Introduction 1 Chapter 1: \"Heaven, Earth, and Man\" in North China 000 @toc3:History of the Hai River System 000 The Hai River Basin of North China 000 Climate of the Hai River Basin 000 Historical Climate 000 Floods, Droughts, and Disasters 000 Local Records and Social Consequences 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 2. Managing the Rivers: Emperors as Engineers 000 @toc3:Kangxi and the Yongding River 000 Yongzheng, Prince Yi, and a Comprehensive Plan 000 Qianlong and Routinization 000 Jiaqing: Heroic Hydraulics 000 Daoguang: Earnest Efforts 000 Fin-de-siecle Floods 000 Local Initiatives 000 Emperors, Bureaucrats, and Ecology 000 @toc2:Chapter 3. Population, Agriculture, and Food 000 @toc3:Population and Land 000 Land and Agriculture Under Manchu Rule 000 Agriculture: Grains and Other Crops 000 Cropping Patterns and Yields 000 Diet and Standard of Living 000 Not Quite a Malthusian Tale 000 @toc2:Chapter 4. Food and Prices 000 @toc3:Long-Term Price Trends 000 Multicropping and Seasonality 000 Natural Crises and Harvests 000 The Copper Coin-Silver Exchange Rate 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 5. Provisioning Beijing 000 @toc3:Beijing and Grain Tribute 000 Grain Stipends: Distribution, Timing, and Sales 000 Pingtiao and the Beijing Market 000 Social Unrest, Pingtiao, and Soup Kitchens 000 Markets, Merchants, and Gendarmerie 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2: Chapter 6. Storing Grain: Granaries as Solution and Problem 000 @toc3:Granaries in Chinese History 000 Kangxi-Yongzheng Origins 000 Ever-Normal Granaries in the Qianlong Period 000 Ever-Normal Granaries in the Jiaqing and Daoguang Periods 000 Community and Charity Granaries 000 External Grain Supplies 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 7. Markets and Prices 000 @toc3:Market Integration Within Zhili 000 Price Integration with Other Regions 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 8. Famine Relief: The High Qing Model 000 @toc3:Famine Investigation 000 General Relief 000 Grain Versus Cash/Millet Versus Sorghum 000 Soup Kitchens 000 Pingtiao 000 Tax Remissions 000 Shelters and Famine Refugees 000 17431744: Famine Relief Model 000 1759: Disaster Without Relief 000 17611763 and Later: Relief With and Without Disaster 000 Overall Evaluation 000 @toc2:Chapter 9. Famine Relief: Nineteenth-Century Devolution 000 @toc3:The 1801 Flood 000 The 18131814 Crisis 000 Daoguang Crises and Corruption 000 Midcentury Political Crisis 000 The 18711872 Floods and the Li Hongzhang Era 000 The 18761879 North China Famine 000 The 18901895 Floods 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 10. The \"Land of Famine,\" 19001949 000 @toc3:1917 and Later Floods 000 The 19201921 Drought and International Aid 000 The 19281930 North China Drought and National Crisis 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 11. Rural Crisis and Economic Change, 1900 1949 000 @toc3:Famine and Poverty 000 Changes in the Economy 000 Local Experiences 000 Economic Trends 000 Japanese Aggression, Communist Insurgency, and Rural Poverty 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 12. Food and Famine Under Socialist Rule, 19491990s 000 @toc3:Population, Agriculture, and Grain in Hebei 000 Socialism and Subsistence in Hebei, 19491958 and Beyond 000 The Great Leap Famine, 19581961 000 Controlling Nature 000 Unleashing the Market 000 Regulating the Grain Market 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Conclusion 000 @toc4:Reign Periods of the Qing Dynasty (16441911) and Use of Dates 000 Weights and Measures 000 Glossary (Chinese Characters) 000 @toc4:Appendices 000 @toc3:Appendix 1: Prefectures and Counties in Zhili Province in Qing Period 000 Appendix 2: Data 000 Appendix 3: Quantitative Methods 000 @toc4:Abbreviations Used in Notes 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Gazetteers List 000 Index 000

The State of the Field of Environmental History

Abstract: Absract This article reviews the state and evolution of the field of environmental history since about 1970. It focuses chiefly on the work of professional historians, but because environmental history is pursued by many varieties of scholars, it occasionally discusses the work of archeologists, geographers, and others. It offers a working definition of the field and an account of its origins, development, and institutionalization from the 1970s until 2010. It briefly surveys the literature on several world regions, concentrating most heavily on South Asia and Latin America, where environmental history at present has grown especially lively. It considers the prominence of Americanists (that is, historians of the United States, not the same thing as Americans) in the field and how that prominence is now waning. It reviews the utility of environmental history for historians, sketches some of the critiques of environmental history, and comments upon some signal findings of recent years.