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The Age of Wood - Roland Ennos - 2020
Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization
By: Roland Ennos
Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 12-01-20
Language: English
Genre: History, World
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Format: mp3 64/48 stereo
A groundbreaking examination of the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem - including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires - in the best-selling tradition of Yuval Harari's Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky's Salt.
As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood.
Brilliantly synthesizing recent research with existing knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as primatology, anthropology, archaeology, history, architecture, engineering, and carpentry, Ennos reinterprets human history and shows how our ability to exploit wood's unique properties has profoundly shaped our bodies and minds, societies, and lives. He takes us on a sweeping 10 million-year journey from Southeast Asia and West Africa where great apes swing among the trees, build nests, and fashion tools; to East Africa where hunter gatherers collected their food; to the structural design of wooden temples in China and Japan; and to Northern England, where archaeologists trace how coal enabled humans to build an industrial world.
Addressing the effects of industrialization - including the use of fossil fuels and other energy-intensive materials to replace timber - The Age of Wood not only shows the essential role that trees play in the history and evolution of human existence, but also argues that for the benefit of our planet we must return to more traditional ways of growing, using, and understanding trees.
A winning blend of history and science, this is a fascinating and authoritative work for anyone interested in nature, the environment, and the making of the world as we know it.
©2020 Roland Ennos. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
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