Trees

About this book

The fifth volume in the reader series, Themes in Environmental History. Comprising essays selected from Environment and History and Environmental Values, these inexpensive paperbacks address important aspects of environmental history through theoretical essays and case studies. The readers are attracting increasing interest from course-organisers.

Trees addresses the roots of environmental history in forest history, offering a substantial section on forestry practice and ideology and the power-relations that have been and continue to be played out in global forests. While histories of forests and forestry have at times, by focus on the woods, obscured our vision of the trees, Trees contains several essays about the nurturing of specific trees, from street trees to penal planting. A theme that runs through many of the essays is the psycho-social significance of trees, from nationalism to legend, imperialism to post-modern uncertainty; trees can be aligned with identity, power, betrayal or redemption. The human relationship with trees that Dargavel and Johann have figured as one of 'science and hope' is an arena for endlessly diversified construction and negotiation, experiment and experience.

Contents

Introduction. Sarah Johnson

PERCEPTIONS
‘The holy property of the entirety of the people’: The Struggle for the ‘German Forest’ in Prussia, 1871-1914. Jeffrey K. Wilson
The Attitude of Kautilya to Aranya. Rita Ghosh Ray

FOREST CHANGE - LONG VIEWS
Down by the Riverside: The Disappearing Bottomland Hardwood Forest of Southeastern North America. Mikko Saikku
Humans and Forests in Pre-colonial Southeast Asia. Anthony Reid

PLANTING
Prehistory of Southern African Forestry: From Vegetable Garden to Tree Plantation. Kate B. Showers
Tree Planting in Canterbury, New Zealand, 1850-1910. Paul Star
Campaigning for Street Trees, Sydney Botanic Gardens, 1890s-1920s Jodi Frawley
Trees of Gold and Men Made Good? Grand Visions and Early Experiments in Penal Forestry in New South Wales, 1913-1938. Benedict Taylor

FORESTRY
Practice
Histories of Forestry: Ideas, Networks and Silences. Phil McManus
Lesniki and Leskhozy: Life and Work in Russia’s Northern Forests. Dominique Moran
Working in the Mangroves and Beyond: Scientific Forestry and the Labour Question in Early Colonial Tanzania. Thaddeus Sunseri

Constructedness and Uncertainty
Forestation and its Discontents: The Invention of an Uncertain Landscape in Southwestern France, 1850-Present. Samuel Temple
Listening to the Birds: A Pragmatic Proposal for Forestry. Nicole Klenk
How Terms Shape Forests: ‘Niederwald’, ‘Mittelwald’ and ‘Hochwald’, and their Interaction with Forest Development in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland. Matthias Bürgi

Power, Negotiation and Conflict
Valuation Contests over the Commoditisation of the Moabi Tree in South-Eastern Cameroon. Sandra Veuthey and Jean-François Gerber
Betrayal or ‘Business as Usual’? Access to Forest Resources in the Nepal Terai. Deb Ranjan Sinha
Breaking New Ground? Gifford Pinchot and the Birth of ‘Empire Forestry’ in the Philippines, 1900-1905. Greg Bankoff

Customer Reviews