This book traces the cultural history of wood and offers a highly original account of the connection between the raw material and the human beings who benefit from it. Even more, it shows that wood can provide a key for a better understanding of history, of the pecularities as well as the varieties of cultures, of a co-evolution of nature and culture, and even of the rise and fall of great powers. Beginning with Stone Age hunters, it follows the twists and turns of the story through the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution to the global society of the twenty-first century, in which wood is undergoing a varied and unexpected renaissance. Radkau is sceptical of claims that wood is about to disappear, arguing that such claims are self-serving arguments promoted by interest groups to secure cheaper access to, and control over, wood resources. The whole forest and timber industry often strikes the outsider as a world unto itself, a hermetically sealed black box, but when we lift the lid on this box, as Radkau does here, we will be surprised by what we find within.
Wide-ranging and accessible, this rich historical analysis of one of our most cherished natural resources will find a wide readership.
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Praising Wood, Caring for Wood, Splitting Wood – and a Historical Synthesis 1
Chapter 1 Paths into the Thicket of History 13
1 The ‘Wood Age’ 14
2 Man and Forest: Stories and History 28
3 Wood and Historical Change 34
Chapter 2 Middle Ages and Early Modern Period: Maximum Exploitation and the Beginnings of Sustainability 56
1 Medieval Society and the Limits of the Forest 57
2 Timber Becomes a Commodity 70
3 Large- Scale Firewood Consumption and the First Wave of Forest Ordinance 92
Chapter 3 From the Apogee of the ‘Wood Age’ to the Industrial Revolution 135
1 Reform, Revolution and the Wood Economy 136
2 The ‘Spectre of Shortage’: Did the Timber Trade Face Catastrophe? 156
3 The Forest: From Living Space to Capital 172
4 Wood Consumers: Economies in the Home and Outside 205
5 Rollback 228
Chapter 4 Wood in the High Industrial Age: Degradation and Rebirth 239
1 The Forest as an Economic Factor 240
2 Technological Revolution in the Timber Industry 256
3 Fissile Material and Bonding Agent: Forest and Wood in the Eco- Age 276
Chapter 5 Global Prospects and Contrasts 294
1 Lessons from Asia 295
2 Conflicts and (Ostensible) Solutions 318
3 Looking Back to the Future: Six Spotlights on the History of Forest and Wood 324
Postscript: The Mystery of Certificates, or, Sustainable Forestry versus Greenwashing 327
Wood Talk 330
References and Bibliography 340
Index 376
