Fr. 48.90

Trees in Paradise - A California History

English · Hardback

Shipping usually within 3 to 5 weeks

Description

Read more










California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It's the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities. They imported the blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative "Orange Empire" on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore.

To the north the majestic coastal redwoods inspired awe and invited exploitation. A resource in the state, the durable heartwood of these timeless giants became infrastructure, transformed by the saw teeth of American enterprise. By 1900 timber firms owned the entire redwood forest; by 1950 they had clear-cut almost all of the old-growth trees.

In time California's new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles's palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago.

Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West.


About the author

Jared Farmer, a Utah native and former Californian, is the author of Trees in Paradise and On Zion’s Mount, a landscape history awarded the prestigious Parkman Prize for literary excellence. He teaches history at Stony Brook University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Summary

From roots to canopy, a lush, verdant history of the making of California.

Product details

Authors Jared Farmer
Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
 
Languages English
Product format Hardback
Released 29.11.2013
 
EAN 9780393078022
ISBN 978-0-393-07802-2
Dimensions 168 mm x 244 mm x 41 mm
Weight 1014 g
Illustrations 32 pages of illustrations
Subjects Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories
Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous

California, History of the Americas

Customer reviews

No reviews have been written for this item yet. Write the first review and be helpful to other users when they decide on a purchase.

Write a review

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Write your own review.

For messages to CeDe.ch please use the contact form.

The input fields marked * are obligatory

By submitting this form you agree to our data privacy statement.