The King's HarvestA multidisciplinary environmental history of early Chinas political systems, featuring newly available Chinese archaeological data This book is a multidisciplinary study of the ecology of Chinas early political systems up to the fall of the first empire in 207 BCE. Brian Lander traces the transformation of lowland North Chinas landscapes from diverse forests and steppes to farmland. He argues that the growth of states in ancient China, and elsewhere,