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The age of wood [large print] : our most useful material and the construction of civilization / by Ennos, Roland,author.(CARDINAL)324534;
Includes bibliographical references.Prologue: The road to nowhere -- Wood and human evolution. Our arboreal inheritance -- Coming down from the trees -- Losing our hair -- Tooling up -- Building civilization. Clearing the forest -- Melting and smelting -- Carving our communities -- Supplying life's luxuries -- Supporting our pretensions -- Limiting our outlook -- Wood in the industrial era. Replacing firewood and charcoal -- Wood in the nineteenth century -- Wood in the modern world -- Facing the consequences. Assessing our impact -- Mending our strained relationship."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 ten-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."--
Subjects: Large print books.; Wood; Trees; Woodwork; Human evolution.; Plants and civilization.; Plants and history.;
Available copies: 5 / Total copies: 5
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It started in Eden : how the plant-hunters and the plants they found changed the course of history / by Dodge, Bertha S.(Bertha Sanford),1902-1995.(CARDINAL)723857;
Bibliography: pages 271-276.
Subjects: Botany, Economic; Plant collectors; Botanists; Plants and civilization.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A forest journey : the role of wood in the development of civilization / by Perlin, John.(CARDINAL)147854;
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: Deforestation; Forests and forestry; Wood; Fuelwood consumption; Plants and civilization.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A forest journey : the story of wood and civilization / by Perlin, John.(CARDINAL)147854;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Introduction -- Mesopotamia -- Bronze Age Crete and Knossos -- Mycenaean Greece -- Cyprus -- Archaic, classical, and Hellenistic Greece -- Rome -- The Muslim Mediterranean -- The Venetian Republic -- England -- Madeira, the West Indies, and Brazil -- America.
Subjects: Deforestation; Forests and forestry; Wood; Fuelwood consumption; Plants and civilization.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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FIELD STUDY : Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium. by Humphreys, Helen,1961-;
A visit to the herbarium is like an exquisite kind of time travel. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, collecting and pressing plants and flowers was a popular pastime the world over. Amateur and professional collectors gathered their specimens into notebooks and cabinets, preserving the botany around them for posterity. Whether you were a famous naturalist like Asa Gray, a writer such as Henry David Thoreau, or a housewife noting her backyard flowers, collecting was available to anyone. For noted poet and novelist Helen Humphreys, the herbarium an hour from her home becomes a quest to find connection to those nature lovers who have gone before, and to consider the changes wrought upon our world since. In this beautiful and elegant book, she pays tribute to the herbariums that are the record keepers of the often-humble plants still with us, and those that have been lost. Over the course of a year, she goes to the herbarium regularly. As she looks at the exquisite and fragile specimens within, she considers life and loss and the importance of finding solace in the natural world around us.
Subjects: Herbaria; Botanical specimens; Plants; Plant collecting;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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Hybrid : the history and science of plant breeding / by Kingsbury, Noël.(CARDINAL)635936;
Includes bibliographical references and index.From the birth of agriculture to the birth of genetics -- Flowering of a technology.
Subjects: Hybridization.; Plant breeding;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The age of wood : our most useful material and the construction of civilization / by Ennos, Roland,author.(CARDINAL)324534;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Part 1: Wood and human evolution: our arboreal inheritance -- coming down from the trees -- losing our hair -- tooling up -- Part 2: Building civilization: clearing the forest -- melting and smelting -- carving our communities -- supplying life's luxuries -- supporting our pretensions -- limiting our outlook -- Part 3: Woods in the Industrial era: replacing firewood and charcoal -- wood in the nineteenth century -- wood in the modern world -- Part 4: Facing the consequences: assessing our impact -- mending our strained relationship.A scholarly and scientific examination of the unrecognized role of trees in the planet's ecosystem reveals wood's unexpected influence on human evolution, civilization, and the global economy.
Subjects: Wood.; Trees.; Wood; Trees; Woodwork; Building, Wooden; Human evolution.; Plants and civilization.; Plants and history.;
Available copies: 17 / Total copies: 17
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Natural dyes in the United States / by Adrosko, Rita J.(CARDINAL)300697; Furry, Margaret Smith,1899-Home dyeing with natural dyes.;
Bibliography: pages 111-118.
Subjects: Dyes and dyeing; Dyes and dyeing, Domestic.; Dye plants.;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
On-line resources: Suggest title for digitization;
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Lives of weeds : opportunism, resistance, folly / by Cardina, John,1953-Author(DLC)no 00056117 ;
Includes bibliography (pages 251-274) and index.Introduction: clearing a path -- Dandelion -- Florida beggarweed -- Velvetleaf -- Nutsedge -- Marestail -- Pigweed -- Ragweed -- Foxtail -- Epilogue: what's 'round the bend."The natural histories of eight ordinary plant species transformed into noxious weeds through mostly well-intended human efforts to get rid of them show how lives of people and weeds are entangled in ways that reflect human beliefs and attitudes toward the natural world" --.
Subjects: Weeds.; Plants and civilization.; Weeds;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Natural histories : 25 extraordinary species that have changed our world / by Westwood, Brett,author.(CARDINAL)658892; Moss, Stephen,1960-author.(CARDINAL)326326;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 408-412) and index.Accompanying Radio 4's acclaimed six-month series with the Natural History Museum, Natural Histories tells the story of our relationship with the natural world. Each chapter focuses on a different creature or species, and the exploration of our reaction to them casts a fascinating light on us--the lion offers a starting point to discussing our relationship with power; the great white shark with fear; coral with the idea of paradise; and the mandrake with poisons. In the expert hands of Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss, this is translated into an imaginative and inspiring book, full of great stories. Natural Histories will bring you face to face with the natural world in all its wonder, complexity and invention
Subjects: Human-animal relationships; Human-plant relationships; Animals and civilization.; Plants and civilization.; Natural history.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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