Since humans first appeared on the earth, we've been cutting down
trees for fuel and shelter. Indeed, the thinning, changing, and
wholesale clearing of forests are among the most important ways
humans have transformed the global environment. With the onset of
industrialization and colonization the process has accelerated, as
agriculture, metal smelting, trade, war, territorial expansion, and
even cultural aversion to forests have all taken their toll.
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.
Accessible and nonsensationalist, "Deforesting the Earth provides
the historical and geographical background we need for a deeper
understanding of deforestation's tremendous impact on the
environment and the people who inhabit it.
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