Description: Author Stephen Pyne traces the impact of fire in Australia, from its influence on vegetation to its use by Aborigines and European settlers. "Stephen Pyne is a great storyteller, and here he weaves as fine a tale as one could imagine about a phenomenon as seemingly ordinary as fire".--NATURAL HISTORY. A Weyerhaeuser Environmental Book. 14 photos.
Brief description: Stephen J. Pyne is emeritus professor in the Biology and Society Program at Arizona State University. He is the author of Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico (Arizona 2024), Pyrocene Park: A Journey into the Fire History of Yosemite National Park (Arizona, 2023), The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next (California, 2021), and more.
Review Quotes:
"This is a phenomenal piece of research and writing, an epic that moves from prehistoric geology to contemporary firefighting theory and draws on an array of natural and social sciences to do so. This is geographical writing at its best and most exhaustive and will intrigue anyone interested in Australia, the environment or human civilization."
-- "San Francisco Chronicle"