Mark Elvin's books often deal with big ideas over large swathes of Chinese history and this book is no exception. The Retreat of the Elephants attempts to describe three millennia of environmental change and environmental ideas in China and to produce conclusions about the nature of Chinese environmental thought as well as experience. It is a masterful tour de force. As such, there is something of interest for everybody. The book is divided into three sections: the first sets the scene and looks at some general cases of degradation over time; the second section concentrates on case studies; and the final section provides textual analysis to elucidate changes in the Chinese view of their environment.

The book begins with a simple geography and history lesson. This is helpful for the non-specialist but provides an overly simple and unusual regionalization. Then again, this approach, accompanied with a style that often translates lesser place names into literal translations, does help to open access to the book for a wider audience. Later in the book, however, there is a tendency to digress about Latin names of plants and stories of the supernatural, with wonderful esoteric translations of Chinese poetry and texts. Elvin's translations use words that would require most of us to thumb through a very thick English dictionary although Elvin kindly introduces these Scottish, Welsh and old English terms to us and provides good explanations on the stories behind many of the Chinese textual allusions. These are delightful and help to clarify the points being made. Still, with such almost overwhelming detail of textual analysis later in the book, it is not completely clear for whom the book is written.