China has the largest electricity generation capacity in the world today. Its number of large dams is second to none. Xiangli Ding provides a historical understanding of China's ever-growing energy demands and how they have affected its rivers, wild species, and millions of residents. River management has been an essential state responsibility throughout Chinese history. In the industrial age, with the global proliferation of concrete dam technology, people started to demand more from rivers, particularly when required for electricity production. Yet hydropower projects are always more than a technological engineering enterprise, layered with political, social, and environmental meaning. Through an examination of specific hydroelectric power projects, the activities of engineers, and the experience of local communities and species, Ding offers a fresh perspective on twentieth-century China from environmental and technological perspectives.

‘Hydropower Nation is a deeply researched and clearly written account of the development of hydroelectric power in twentieth-century China. Spanning the 1949 divide, Xiangli Ding's account examines the interplay between the new technology and China's nation-state building project, placing that story in the context of both China's millennia-long history of ‘water management' and global efforts to harness the power of moving water to meet human needs. In case studies that include the mega-hydro project in the Yellow River's Sanmenxia Gorge to Maoist-era small scale hydro projects in Fujian province, Ding shows the human and ecological consequences in China of hydropower development. In pursuit of power – both in terms of energy and political control – water, people, and wildlife come together in Ding's masterful analysis and narrative showing how China has emerged as the Hydropower Nation.'

Robert Marks - Whittier College

‘In this important contribution to scholarship on the history of energy in modern China, Xiangli Ding demonstrates the political significance of hydropower, along with its consequences for people and wildlife.'

Sigrid Schmalzer - University of Massachusetts Amherst

‘This timely and refreshing study explores modern industrial society's relentless thirst for energy through the history of China's hydropower projects across the twentieth century. Ding carefully traces the complex interplay of technology and the environment in the building of dams big and small without losing sight of the countless people whose lives would be irrevocably changed by this concrete revolution.'

Victor Seow - Harvard University

‘A book like this is long overdue. Thanks to Xiangli Ding's yeoman efforts, we now have the first history of hydropower in modern China. Essential reading for those seeking to understand China's current status as the world's leading exponent of hydropower at home and abroad.'

Arunabh Ghosh - Harvard University