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A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization
by John Perlin
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Harvard University Press (1991-03-01)
ISBN: 0674308921
EAN: 9780674308923
Dewy Decimal #: 333.75
Paperback: 448 pages
SKU: V058SAL
Condition: Used: Good
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Chronicles the destruction of the world's forests as a result of overdependency on wood as a building and energy source, and points out the resultant declining soil productivity, flooding, and depletion of firewood supplies.
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Customer Reviews
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Up There With Diamond's "Collapse"--(possibly better)
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-03-27
I've read a number of books on the subject of humanity's relationship to forest and have gotten used to putting them down wishing for more depth.
Or wishing that the book would stay on topic.
I didn't with this book.
This book is right up there with Jared Diamond's "Collapse" in its breadth. From the ancients to the present, "Forest Journey" makes the reader aware of an much overlooked fact: the momentousness of wood.
"Forest" goes out on a limb several times to point out a probable link between several civilization's decline and their declining forests.
As an American, you cannot read this book without coming away seeing your country not so much addicted to oil as it is to wood.
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Compelling first half, disappointing second half
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-08-18
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is what is says it is: the story of wood and civilization. That sounds a bit odd, but you will be amazed to see how many ways wood contributed to the growth of civilization, as fuel, material for houses, ships and wagons, as support for digging mines, molds for crafting other materials, and so on. Only when coal and oil become available as alternative fuels, and especially when coal can be used to smelt and forge iron, does wood recede somewhat in importance.
The basic structure of the story is simple. Some city or state develops because it has ready access to forests. It eventually destroys the forests, with no thought of the future. At that point, it goes abroad to purchase or conquer new lands with virgin forests. But someone in those new lands manages to build up their own civilization and defeat the old-timers. The new civilization then repeats the pattern.
The first half of the book tells this story in a lively but necessarily superficial way for ancient civilizations from Mesopotamia to Rome. Presumably something similar was happening in China, India, and the New World civilizations of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas, but we hear very little about those. The stories are compelling, and they will make you see these civilizations in a new light.
The second half of the book focuses on England, some New World colonies such as Madeira and Brazil, and the United States. These chapters become much more detailed - - we meet individual foresters, iron forgers, and learn about particular pieces of legislation. Here Perlin has written a much more traditional history, with a less vigorous story.
Thus, the two halves of the book are unbalanced: the first half sweeping, the second half unnecessarily detailed. Perlin also gives no thought to case selection: why talk about England and not Sweden? Why not Russia? Without such considerations about the overall structure of his narrative, he tends to give us a collection of anecdotes more than a compelling argument.
Oddly, the book leaves off exactly where you wish it would continue. Perlin gives only passing attention to 20th-century forest policy in the United States. US forests have grown in size over this century, even as the Forest Service and private landowners have clearcut huge swaths of our forests. Is this an example of successful management, or not? Why or why not?
Perlin should provide a similar analysis of tropical deforestation today. Will Brazil, Indonesia, and others follow the US example and reforest their lands a few decades after clearing them? Or will the follow the example of civilizations such as Persia and end up trying to survive in denuded semi-deserts?
Those are the real questions for such a book, and it is a shame that Perlin did not address them.
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Essential Book About the Role of Man and our Environment
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-07-11
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is an amazing find. After reading it several years ago we have been giving it as a gift to everyone we know. You will not be able to put it down once you start reading it. So thoughly researched, it will change the entire way you think about the role or forests and trees in the history of man.
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An important and monumental history of fuel and the tragedy of the commons
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-01-14
8 out of 8 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is one of the most important books I have ever read.
The relevance for our times of this highly engaging history of how the earliest civilizations to late 19th-century America have exploited wood (primarily as fuel, then as building material) and cleared forests cannot be overstated. Again and again, Perlin shows that the tragedy of the commons repeats itself throughout the patterns of human history, and the cycle has continued to the present day when we have the choice to break it by developing renewable, clean energy.
Beginning with the Mesopotamians, and continuing unabated to the present day, civilizations have access to forests previously admired and considered sacred. Greed for economic gain and/or military power, not the necessities of life (for which the forests amply provide) motivates Man to cut down forests at an increasingly alarming pace, as everyone wants to get in on the profits. Enormous quantities of wood are often cut down to produce a small quantum of finished products, such as a few kilograms of iron or refined sugar. The exploitation of forests is almost completely unregulated until it is too late for governments to do much about it. Often governments themselves dismiss or respond insufficiently to concerns by educated citizens, who warn of economic and ecological devastation if the free-for-all logging continues. And often this is because government members are well-placed to make personal profits from the wood/fuel trade. The individual cutters don't think to replant what they have taken, or even to spare saplings and young trees - why, when there's so much of it for oneself? Within several hundred years, there is little or no wood left (the latter situation was more common). The civilization declines for environmental devastation (such as large-scale erosion) and lack of fuel (as they are no longer able to compete with other civilizations and their militaries who still have access to wood, and there is little or no wood left for basic necessities such as heating and cooking). We see that the only civilizations which have exploited wood on a large scale and yet escaped this cycle were the modern-day civilizations that began to rely on coal and other polluting fuels, such as Industrial Revolution-era Britain, and eventually the United States of America.
The book goes into far more detail than this, crammed with information on the key role wood has played in wars, alliances, the building of civilizations, the power of civilizations and, again, their decline.
I found this book fascinating and read it from cover to cover. Its relevance for today is in showing us that fuel shortage problems are nothing new, and that the survival of civilizations has always depended on fuel not running out, and likely always will, for as long as we aspire to live beyond the bare necessities of life. Our present-day civilizations are no exception, but as we all know, the human population and therefore the human need is much higher than it ever has been before, and many of us are not aware of the ecological implications of our lifestyles, as we are so far removed from the natural ecology in cities. But we can make a difference before it is too late. Not only is an awareness of history a wake-up call if we choose to educate ourselves, which would encourage us to live more wisely in taking care of the environment around us, but environmentally-friendly fuel technologies are emerging for us to live at an even higher level of comfort and health than ever before.
The author, along with his Nobel-prize winning collaborators at UCSB, Drs. Walter Kohn and Alan Heeger, are avid researchers and promoters of solar and other renewable energy sources: watch this space! The author is also affiliated with a great website promoting solar energy, explaining solar technology and delving into some of the history of solar energy use (which goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks!): www.californiasolarcenter.org.
I cannot recommend this book more highly. We all live in a world which continues to be so unwisely exploited on our behalf that it could mean the decline of us all - this book is therefore essential reading for every single person in our time.
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Ambitious
Rating (4)
Date: 2002-05-17
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Perlin's book is an ambitious overview of the use of wood in world civilization. Therein lies the both the book's strengths and weaknesses. Like any work that attempts to do a global history, inevitably some regions and some eras get very short shrift. Still, A Forest Journey is interesting, and well worth reading by anyone with an interest in environmental or forest history.
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