Elderflora

A Modern History of Ancient Trees

Jared Farmer

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English

Picador
14 February 2023

Mathematics & Sciences; Trees, wildflowers & plants

The epic story of the planet's oldest trees and the making of the modern world.

Humans have always revered long-lived trees. But as historian Jared Farmer reveals in Elderflora, our veneration took a modern turn in the eighteenth century, when naturalists embarked on a quest to locate and precisely date the oldest living things on earth. The new science of tree time prompted travellers to visit ancient specimens and conservationists to protect sacred groves. Exploitation accompanied sanctification, as old-growth forests succumbed to imperial expansion and the industrial revolution.

Taking us from Lebanon to New Zealand to California, Farmer surveys the complex history of the world's oldest trees, including voices of Indigenous peoples, religious figures, and contemporary scientists who study elderflora in crisis. In a changing climate, a long future is still possible, Farmer shows, but only if we give care to young things that might grow old.

Combining rigorous scholarship with lyrical writing, Elderflora chronicles the complex roles ancient trees have played in the modern world and illuminates how we might need old trees now more than ever.

Historian Jared Farmer tells the globe-spanning story of humanity's deep fascination with the oldest living trees, the lessons in survival they offer us, and how to alter our behaviour so that the young trees of today can become ancient themselves.

By: Jared Farmer
Imprint: Picador
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 233mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 34mm
Weight: 552g
ISBN: 9781035009053
ISBN 10: 1035009056
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 14 February 2023
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jared Farmer is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. A former Andrew Carnegie Fellow, he is the author of several books, including On Zion's Mount, which won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians. He lives in Philadelphia.

Reviews for Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees

Jared Farmer brings both classic and state-of-the-art botany alive . . . he shows singular insight into how we do what we do-and perhaps more importantly-why we spend our lives studying trees. -- Hope Jahren, author of <i>Lab Girl</i> While it is true that the trees have no tongues, that doesn't mean they don't speak to us . . . Read Jared Farmer's lucid and fascinating book to discover the . . . mysteries told by elderflora. -- Michael Mann, author of <i>The New Climate War</i>