Roland Ennos'The Wood Age is a love-letter to the world's most vital and yet most threatened material. It is the story of how wood has shaped our human experience from the earliest foragers to the modern four poster bed.
In a journey to appreciate how much wood matters - and has done since prehistory - Roland Ennos takes the reader chronologically through four key phases: the impact of wooded habits on the lives of primates; human emergence and the discoveries of fire and woodwork; wood's role in an environment both pre- and post-industrialisation; and lastly,the possible future of wood in an increasingly technologized world.
In an original and essential investigation,The Wood Age challenges the traditional model of historical development - stone,bronze,iron - and instead guide readers through a revealing and innovative wooded history of the world.
Publisher: HarperCollins PublishersISBN: 9780008318871Number of pages: 336Weight: 240 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 21 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'A stunning book on the incalculable debt humanity owes to wood ...Roland Ennos's knowledge of all things arboreal is vast and intricate. He is a professor of biology at the University of Hull and the author of several books,among them the Natural History Museum's official guide to trees. But The Wood Age is something different - nothing less than a complete reinterpretation of human history and prehistory,and it is written with enormous verve and pinpoint clarity...No review can match the richness of Ennos's book. There are chapters or sections on coal and charcoal,pottery kilns,modern wooden buildings,techniques of melting and smelting metals,the history of shipbuilding,wind and watermills,deforestation and much else...I felt like cheering.'- John Carey,The Sunday Times
'A lively history of biology,mechanics and culture that stretches back 60 million years... A specialist in the mechanics of wood,Ennos has a fierce love for his topic'- Nature
'Wonderful'- i news
'An eye-opening piece of environmental history...Excellent...Comes highly recommended'- The Inquisitive Biologist
'Ennos,a professor at the University of Hull and a specialist in the mechanical properties of trees,shares his insatiable curiosity with us. He applies his sharp eye for details,and he does so entertainingly'- Washington Post
'Ennos's special love and concern is for things made from trees...The principles of every significant technology,from tree-felling and carpentry to shipbuilding and papermaking,are described with a precise,almost mesmerizing detail'- New York Times Book Review
'(Ennos) takes a fresh look at the familiar substance,wielding it like a wedge to pry open our past,examine our present and even glimpse our future'-Wall Street Journal
'Nearly the whole of human history deserves a different title: the Age of Wood'- The New Republic
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