| Description |
xxvi, 689 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm |
| Contents |
pt. 1. Clearing in the deep past -- 1. The return of the forest -- 2. Fire and foragers -- 3. The first farmers -- 4. The classical world -- 5. The medieval world -- pt. 2. Reaching out : Europe and the wider world -- 6. Driving forces and cultural climates, 1500-1750 -- 7. Clearing in Europe, 1500-1750 -- 8. The wider world, 1500-1750 -- 9. Driving forces and cultural climates, 1750-1900 -- 10. Clearing in the temperate world, 1750-1920 -- 11. Clearing in the tropical world, 1750-1920 -- pt. 3. The global forest -- 12. Scares and solutions, 1900-1944 -- 13. The great onslaught, 1945-95 : dimensions of change -- 14. The great onslaught, 1945-95 : patterns of change |
| Summary |
Michael Williams surveys ten thousand years of history to trace how, why, and when human-induced deforestation has shaped economies, societies, and landscapes around the world. Beginning with the return of the forests to Europe, North America, and the tropics after the Ice Ages, Williams traces the impact of human-set fires for gathering and hunting, land clearing for agriculture, and other activities from the Paleolithic through the classical world and the Middle Ages. He then continues the story from the 1500s to the early 1900s, focusing on forest clearing both within Europe and by European imperialists and industrialists abroad, in such places as the New World and India, China, Japan, and Latin America. Finally, he covers the present-day and alarming escalation of deforestation, with the ever-increasing human population placing a possibly unsupportable burden on the world's forests |
| Analysis |
Deforestation |
|
Land clearing |
|
Environmental impact |
|
History |
|
International comparisons |
|
Overseas item |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 579-661) and index |
| Subject |
Forests and forestry -- History.
|
|
Clearing of land -- History.
|
|
Deforestation -- History.
|
| LC no. |
2001007754 |
| ISBN |
0226899268 cloth alkaline paper |
|
