“With The Travels of Lao Can as case study, Dr. Hui-Lin Hsu has offered a most inspiring and comprehensive research on the Yellow River vis-à-vis the rise of Chinese modernity. From environmental mutations to hydraulic engineering, from nation-building to the history of technicity, from literary symbolism to ecological deliberation, he tells the story of a river deeply bound to Chinese civilization, yet treacherous in its rapids as it flows toward the modern age. As the first of its kind, When the Yellow River Floods is a must-read for anyone interested in early modern Chinese fiction, the history of cultural politics, environmental studies, and disaster studies.”

—David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University

“When the Yellow River Floods is an important new contribution to the scholarship on late Qing literature and history. With a focus on competing strategies to contain and regulate the Yellow River, Hui-Lin Hsu offers a compelling study of The Travels of Lao Can, a late Qing novel by Liu E, and late Qing China.”

—Wei Shang, Columbia University

List of Figures 

Acknowledgments 

A Note on the Text 

Introduction 

1. Hydraulics and Medicine: Remedying Body and Nation 

2. Governance, Hydraulics, and the Vice of the Incorruptible 

3. From Sediment to Sentiment: Transforming Flood Trauma into National Identity 

4. Water, Landscape, and the Appearance of a New National Literature 

5. Toward China’s Rejuvenation: The Taigu School and Yellow River Regulation 

Conclusion 

Works Cited 

Index