Zachary Hershey

Bio

Zachary Hershey is an environmental and legal historian of middle-period (c. 800-1300) East and Inner Asia with a focus on the intersection of agricultural and pastoral activities in North China. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages & Civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Hershey is currently adapting his dissertation on the environmental and ethnic dynamics of Liao-era North China into a book project and writing a paper on the administration of the Song dynasty prison system. In addition to East Asian history surveys, his courses explore historical environmental issues of East and North Asia including deforestation, hydraulic projects and flooding, resource management, and land use as well as the philosophy and practice of law in pre-modern China.