The Age of Wood

[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 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 Nearly the whole of human history deserves a different title: the Age of Wood. --The New Republic An excellent, thorough history in an age of our increasingly fraught relationships with natural resources. --Kirkus Reviews, starred review This engaging natural history will draw in fans of Mark Kurlansky's Cod and Vince Beiser's The World in a Grain. It does a fantastic job of elevating humble wood to its rightful place alongside stone, bronze, and iron as a key resource in leading humanity to its dazzling achievements. --Library Journal This expansive history will give readers a newfound appreciation for one of the world's most ubiquitous yet overlooked materials. --Publishers Weekly Smart and surprising, Ennos' inquiry proves that there is much we still need to learn about wood and how it has shaped our past and present. --Booklist This fascinating book is an eye-opening history of wood... From how trees, and our interactions with trees, have shaped ecosystems, to how wood itself has been incorporated into societies, to how wood functions as a material, it gives a rundown like no other. --BookMarks Ennos, a professor at the University of Hull in England 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