China is one of the world’s largest industrial polluters, and balancing the environmental concerns of citizens, the demands of industry, and the interests of the nation is a complex challenge.

Blue Skies over Wuhan uses Hubei Province – particularly its sprawling industrial capital, Wuhan City – as a case study of growing environmental awareness in China in the 1970s and ’80s. Yun Liu painstakingly sifts through a wealth of incident records to explore the evolution of environmental protection policy. Reports document repeated sectoral conflicts in this early system of crisis management, when measures to contain industrial emissions largely failed because of inadequate policy implementation.

Nonetheless, the attention that Blue Skies over Wuhan gives to newly uncovered evidence reveals a symbiotic relationship between communities and state actors that shaped the trajectory of environmental governance, from an agenda dominated by economic growth priorities to a more mature, state-led approach.