Dr Christopher Courtney christopher.j.courtney@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor
This article offers a critical reappraisal of the Maoist state's response to the 1954 Yangzi floods. It uses a variety of sources, including previously classified government reports and oral history testimony, to challenge the official narrative. It argues that, far from being a remarkable victory for the new government, the flood was a humanitarian catastrophe that caused almost 150,000 deaths. Government hydraulic policies were partly to blame, as the vast majority of disaster victims were located in rural areas that were flooded deliberately in order to protect cities. In addition to revealing the true scale of the flood, this article uses the disaster as a prism to examine the early Maoist state. The government's combative environmental policies turned disaster governance into a war on water. This approach had certain benefits, particularly in terms of organizing an effective urban relief campaign. Unfortunately, campaign politics fostered an atmosphere of distrust, which encouraged many citizens to resist disaster-prevention policies. The example of the 1954 flood reveals the profound impact that a political context can have upon the outcome of a supposedly natural disaster.
Courtney, C. (2018). At War with Water: The Maoist state and the 1954 Yangzi floods. Modern Asian Studies, 52(06), 1807-1836. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x16001049
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Nov 1, 2016 |
Online Publication Date | Jul 17, 2018 |
Publication Date | Jul 17, 2018 |
Deposit Date | Nov 3, 2018 |
Publicly Available Date | Nov 23, 2018 |
Journal | Modern Asian Studies |
Print ISSN | 0026-749X |
Electronic ISSN | 1469-8099 |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 52 |
Issue | 06 |
Pages | 1807-1836 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x16001049 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1314758 |
Accepted Journal Article
(8.8 Mb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in Modern Asian studies https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X16001049. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University Press 2018
The birth of cool: Heat and air-conditioning in the history of Wuhan, 1950–2020
(2023)
Journal Article
Disasters Fast and Slow: The Temporality of Hazards in Environmental History
(2018)
Journal Article
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search