Most people are aware of China's severe environmental problems. The country's cities are among the world's most polluted; one of the major rivers sometimes fails to run to the sea; the desert is now only a few hours' drive from Beijing. China's falling water tables, transnational ecological impacts, thirst for energy, and emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances have made its environmental problems an urgent concern not only for its own citizens and policymakers but also for the world. A book that attempts to analyze the causes and implications of this situation is welcome.

The River Runs Black makes the case that China's environmental problems are so severe and challenging that they endanger the country's long-term economic and social well-being. The main argument is that decentralization, which has worked so stunningly to promote China's economic growth, has had poorer results for the environment. An inadequately staffed and underfunded environmental protection bureaucracy, whose status is often inferior to the government agencies and industries it is monitoring, cannot implement China's environmental protection regulations in a uniform and predictable fashion. Instead, rare individual leaders—the mayors of Dalian, Xiamen, and Shanghai, for example—have taken a personal interest in environmental issues, thereby attracting foreign investment and support for environmental projects. The majority adopt a “develop first, clean up later” approach, often with devastating results.

The book includes chapters on history, environmental degradation, governance challenges, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the role of the international community, comparative issues, and scenarios for the future. Although much of the text reads as a policy briefing or compilation of English-language secondary sources, it comes to life in a lively chapter on some of the individuals and groups that comprise China's fragile environmental civil society. Leading environmentalists, such as Tang Xiyang, Xi Zhinong, Liang Congjie, and Liao Xiaoyi, have interesting stories of courage, personal setback, and commitment, and Elizabeth Economy tells them well.

China's participation in the global environmental community is also clearly described and useful, with such interesting details as the fact that 80% of the country's environmental protection budget comes from foreign donors. Economy draws a valuable contrast between Japan's environmental aid and concern and the failure of the United States to engage China on environmental issues.

The book would have been enlivened by a detailed portrait of one of the environmentalist mayors and his city, and by greater discussion of the “model green city” concept, now being touted as a possible solution to China's environmental ills. (During the Mao era, the country was required to imitate models like Dazhai, the agricultural brigade, with highly mixed results.) The section on the ongoing use of top-down political campaigns to resolve environmental issues is disappointingly undeveloped (for a sophisticated, field-based discussion of Chinese environmental law-enforcement campaigns, see the work of legal anthropologist Benjamin Van Rooij). These omissions reflect the fact that most of the research for the book appears to have been conducted outside the country.

Economy concludes her book with three scenarios for China's environmental future, one rosy, one mixed, and one bleak. The positive scenario would require “effective application of the rule of law, greater citizen participation in the political process, and the strengthening of civil society” (p. 264). World Trade Organization membership is good for the environment (the author is no antiglobalization activist); electricity from the Three Gorges Dam—and a new natural gas pipeline from Xinjiang province to Shanghai—improve China's energy mix. (Presumably, the dam does not break or silt up, millions of resettled farmers are finally compensated, and in a real stretch of the imagination, the Muslims in the West are allowed to benefit from the exploitation of their resources.) The Chinese Communist Party opens the political process to multiparty presidential elections. Participation in international environmental regimes promotes government accountability, while NGO and media vigilance keeps development schemes from exploiting poor hinterlands for the benefit of richer coastal regions.

In the “mixed” scenario, largely a continuation of current patterns, automobile use explodes without increased fuel efficiency, cleanup is favored over pollution prevention, and Western regions are further despoiled and devastated. The success of a continued “patchwork of environmental protection practices” (p. 268) depends on a handful of environmentally inclined mayors from wealthy cities, and China's NGO sector and international partners remain constrained and frustrated.

Economic downturn causes a third, “environmental meltdown” scenario. Widespread violent protests follow layoffs, the social welfare system is overwhelmed, and the country opens itself to poor environmental practices and polluting industries from abroad. China falls into chaos and civil war, with the environment just one of many causes of mass disaffection.

Economy suggests that the United States has a major role to play in affecting these outcomes, thereby revealing the book to be, at heart, a policy paper. One of her core questions is whether environmental issues will provide a wedge for democratic political reform or revolution. To explore this line of inquiry, she devotes a lengthy comparative discussion to the experiences of Eastern Europe, Russia, and the rest of Asia, where environmental issues have often provided a cloak for democratic activism. However, as oft-discussed as these matters are in Washington, beleaguered Chinese environmentalists avoid them, precisely for fear of being perceived as having a political agenda. Indeed, if Chinese policymakers read this book, they may be tempted to revisit their limited tolerance for environmental groups.

For those unfamiliar with China's environmental degradation, bureaucratic complexities, and the transnational influences and projects detailed here, The River Runs Black provides a useful introduction. But despite its dramatic title, the volume is no page-turner. It will not effectively lead students or general readers to care about these issues, nor will it satisfy those seeking fresh analysis of some of the most troubling environmental problems of our time.