Member Bio
Xia Mingfang is professor of history at Renmin University of China and director of the Center for Ecological History and the Institute of Qing History (IQH). He is also vice chairman of the Disaster History Committee of China Associate for Disaster Prevention. Since becoming a graduate student in 1989, Xia Mingfang's research has been focused on the history of disaster and famine, and exploring the process of interactions between social changes and natural disasters. He contributed to The Sequel to the Chronological Record of Disasters and Famine in Modern China (1993), and The Top Ten Disasters in Modern China (1994) and is the author of Natural Disasters and Rural Society in the Republic of China(2000), and The Bumpy Road: China’s Modernization in Ecological Transformation (2012). He also co-edits the book series Ecology and People, which publishes Chinese translations of scholarly work on environmental history.
Projects
"Natural Disasters, Environmental Changes, and Rural Market Development in North China since the Ming Dynasty"
Lunchtime Colloquium Video - Where Is Adam Smith? China's Rural Economy in Environmental History (1368-1949)
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