China Social Science Review

No.3, 2020

Basic Issues and Scholarly Trends in Research on the History of Chinese Agricultural Disasters

(Abstract)

Bu Fengxian

Trends in the history of agricultural disasters, as a branch of disaster history research, have made great strides, gaining the attention of scholars in many fields. Although specific studies on such basic issues as the historical evolution and characteristics of agricultural disasters and the history of disaster reduction and relief are progressing, they still suffer from unclear research directions, insufficiently developed research fields, and rigid research paradigms. We need to advance this research along the three dimensions of traditional agriculture, food security and agricultural heritage, in order to fully expand the scholarly space for the history of agricultural disasters in three directions: the history of science and technology, the history of society and the economy, and the history of culture. We need to build an academic discipline for the history of agricultural disasters that has the salient features of a branch of disaster history and is also compatible with agricultural history.