“American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation”

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“American Canopy:Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation”
By Erik Rutkow
Writer, Lawyer, Historian Read more about the book and author

This fascinating and groundbreaking work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and their trees across the entire span of our nation’s history.

From the Book Jacket: Like many of us, historians have long been guilty of taking trees for granted.  Yet the history of trees in America is no less remarkable than the history of the United States itself–from the majestic white pines of New England, which were coveted by the British Crown for use as masts in navy warships, to the orange groves of California, which lured settlers west…. America–if indeed it existed–would be a very different place without its millions of acres of trees. As American Canopy shows, trees were essential to the early years of the republic and indivisible from the country’s rise as both an empire and a civilization.  As symbols of liberty, community, and civilization, trees are perhaps the loudest silent figures in our country’s history….  Today, few people think about where timber comes from, but most of us share a sense that to destroy trees is to destroy part of ourselves and endanger the future.  

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