Panda Nation: The Construction and Conservation of China's Modern Icon by E. Elena Songster (review)

Many books have been written about the giant panda, undoubtedly one of the most popular—and often considered one of the cutest—animals on Earth. E. Elena Songster's new book Panda Nation: The Construction and Conservation of China's Modern Icon presents the first comprehensive ethnographic account of how the giant panda became a national icon in the context of the rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and how this iconic image contributed to the evolution of the identity of the PRC in the international community. In pointing to the book's comprehensiveness, I mean that it encompasses the exercise of state power in the PRC, various historical actors, the giant panda itself, panda reserves, the other animals inhabiting those reserves, the wider environment, and the role of other international players. This combination secures for this book a significant place in contemporary scholarship. It is also noteworthy that the author keeps the book to a moderate length while still addressing political power, human-animal relations, and environmental and ecological concerns.

This book is very impressive in successfully weaving a broad and diverse range of sources into a grand narrative about the giant panda as a precious and rare species, a scientific object, and a political symbol in the history of the PRC. As the author notes, she has drawn on "Chinese- and English-language sources from local, provincial, and national archives, newspapers, scientific articles, governmental policies, surveys, books, and laws, as well as insights from experts, officials, and zookeepers." She also "analyzes artwork, advertisements, maps, photographs, and statistical data, as well as first-hand observations of the pandas and the habitat itself" (p. 3). Research must have required a painstaking search for sources across genres. Taken together, they illuminate the exercise of PRC state power at the local and central levels.

Aside from a brief introduction outlining the structure of the book and the major research questions and a conclusion reaffirming some of the main arguments, the eight central chapters of the book are arranged in roughly chronological order, with each chapter focusing on one or two particular issues. Chapter 1 offers a brief history of the scientific discoveries and taxonomic debates relating to the giant panda and its fossils beginning in the year 1869, when Fr. David, a French-Catholic missionary, introduced it to the West. From the perspective of the history of science, this chapter argues that the scientific study of the giant panda, and its exclusive existence in China, motivated the PRC to present this animal as a national symbol. Chapter 2 does not directly focus on the giant panda, but rather offers historical, political, and economic background for the creation of nature reserves for protecting precious and rare animals in the early years of the PRC. It examines the process of establishing Mt. Dinghu the PRC's first nature reserve in 1956 under the influence of Soviet experts. The author suggests that interest in natural preservation was initially limited to the scientific community, but that the central government quickly became involved as part of the socialist state-building project of the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter also investigates the implementation of the government policy of "protecting, rearing, hunting" during the Great Leap Forward and the subsequent strategy of economic recovery.

Chapter 3 returns to the giant panda and discusses how "the creation of the Wanglang Panda Protection Reserve in 1965 demonstrated how a concept such as nature-protection policy could originate in the nation's top legislative body and be transformed into physical reality in the remote mountain ranges of southwestern China" (p. 69). Analyzing data from archives, interviews, and fieldwork, this chapter argues that the creation of the giant panda protection reserve in Wanglang incorporated provincial, local, and individual interests. This research illustrates the process by which the central government, local ethnic minority hunters from...