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Book Project: Pollution Revolution
Dissertation:
My current book project, “Pollution Revolution: Maoism, Environmentalism, and the Consequences of Industrialization in Modern China”, examines the intersection of the global rise in awareness of environmental issues in the 1960s-70s and the revolutionary project to remake society that was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The book recovers how Chinese leaders, scientists, and workers confronted the harmful environmental and public health consequences of industrial production during the Cultural Revolution. It traces their efforts to build systems for managing industrial waste, recycling byproducts, and reorganizing production—efforts grounded in both globally circulating scientific ideas and Maoist visions of social and technological transformation. Across the 1970s, many Maoists sought to theorize and put into practice their own approach to “environmental protection” (环境保护) that aligned with the goals of socialist revolution and was distinctive from programs in capitalist, developed countries.
Journal Articles
- Spivey, Brian. “The Anthropocene and a Small Place in China.” Journal of Urban History 50, no. 3 (November 2023): 563–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144223120930
- Spivey, Brian. “The December 12th Student Movement: Uyghur Student Protest in Reform-Era China.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 81, no. 4 (November 2022): 727-746. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911822001206
Book Chapters
- “’The Food of Industry: Coal and Consequences in Modern China,” prepared for China’s Environmental History: A Reader, edited by Brian Lander and Pete Lavelle. Under contract with Columbia University Press.
- “‘Waste into Treasure’ and ‘Harms into Benefits’: Comprehensive Utilization and Industrial Pollution in the Mao Era,” prepared for Revolutionary Natures: Grassroots Environmental Histories of China's Mao Era, edited by Micah Muscolino. Forthcoming March 2026 from University of Washington Press.
Book Reviews
- Review of Xiangli Ding, Hydropower Nation: Dams, Energy, and Political Changes in Twentieth-Century China. In The Journal of Asian Studies, 85:2 (February 2026). https://doi.org/10.1215/00219118-12257765
- Review of Cheng Li, Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the Making of Modern China. In History: Reviews of New Books (November 2025). https://doi.org/10.1080/03612759.2025.2576406
- Review of Judd Kinzley, Natural Resources and the New Frontier: Constructing Modern China’s Borderlands. In PRC History Review, No. 22, (August 2020): 1-4. http://prchistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Kinzley_review.pdf
- Review of Joshua Eisenman, Red China's Green Revolution: Technological Innovation, Institutional Change, and Economic Development under the Commune. In H-Environment, H-Net Reviews, (January 2021). https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55409