This Week, I'm Reading...

American Canopy, by Eric Rutkow

I’ve avoided sharing posts about the books I’m reading for research on my own book, but American Canopy is an interesting and sweeping history of trees in America that I think some of you would enjoy. The subtitle is Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation—a unique lens through which to view the history of America. Author Eric Rutkow actually makes you wonder what America would have been without its forests. Could it have been founded at all? Following the last Ice Age, the entire eastern half of the United States and much of the west was forested. It’s hard to picture one massive forest, broken only by wetlands, covering the entire land mass from the Mississippi River east, but that’s what America looked like in 1600, when a small population of tens of thousands of first peoples lived lightly in the forests and small clearings they’d created. Author Rutkow tells the stories of what happened next: how the English turned to the northeastern forests to supply hulls and masts for their navy because they’d cut down all of their own forests; how deforestation led to a devastating conflagration in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin 150 years before we saw similar losses in LA; who was responsible for popularizing the idea of actually planting trees; the role they played in the Dust Bowl and World War II. You’ll probably never think about trees the same way again.

What are you reading this week? Let us know in the comment section below!