This book investigates how religious traditions, modern ideologies, and minority cultural perspectives intersect to shape the discourse on ecological sustainability in contemporary China. The authors, Dan Smyer Yu, James T. M. Miller, and Peter van der Veer, utilize a multidisciplinary approach to move beyond binary interpretations of Chinese development. By examining the social imagination of nature, they argue that environmental policy and practice in China are deeply embedded in a complex web of historical, religious, and global influences.

Experts identify this work as a significant contribution to the study of environmental humanities and contemporary Chinese society. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the depth of the ethnographic research provided by the authors.