| Summary: | <p>This research examines how strategy-making in the global crisis of the seventeenth century could be a resource to help humanity address the ecological crisis of the twenty-first. It starts with two historical case studies, and then develops core ideas from those cases for application in today’s context.</p>
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<p>The first case study explores how the Jesuit China Mission’s strategy-making was shaped by the ecological crisis that Matteo Ricci S.J. (1552–1610) witnessed in 1604, and by the thinking of Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) on how China should respond to this crisis. The second case study analyses the theories of law, science, and regeneration of Sir Cheney Culpeper (1600–66), a pioneer of ‘agroecological’ and ‘agrichemical’ approaches to improving farming.</p>
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<p>Agriculture is central to the strategic thought and actions of both Xu and Culpeper. For Xu, agriculture is part of the Confucian imperative of good government for the benefit of the people and in harmony with the natural world. For Culpeper, agriculture is one manifestation of the way in which humanity can benefit by working with the laws of nature. The research takes these themes to develop strategic resources that can be deployed in the quest for survival and regeneration today. A public law strategy takes forward Culpeper’s themes of natural law, the laws of nature, and necessity to propose a new test in judicial review in today’s courts. A private law strategy sets out the case against the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser which underpins the modern industrial and chemical food system. Research on rice cultivation provides evidence to support the case for agricultural transformation.</p>
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<p>Progressing from history to law and agriculture, the research seeks not only to learn the lessons of history but to find ways to apply them urgently and strategically in this ‘crisis of time’, in Culpeper’s words.</p>
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