Robert P. Weller is Professor of Anthropology and Research Associate of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs at Boston University. His numerous books and articles on China and Taiwan range from religion to political change, including most recently Civil Life, Political Change, and Globalization in Asia (editor, 2005).

Robert Weller's richly documented account describes the extraordinary transformations which have taken place in Chinese and Taiwanese responses to the environment across the twentieth century. The book focuses on nature tourism, anti-pollution movements, and policy implementation to show how the global spread of western ideas about nature has interacted with Chinese traditions. Inevitably differences of understanding across groups have caused problems in administering environmental reforms. They will have to be resolved if the dynamic transformations of the 1980s are to be maintained in the twenty-first century.