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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees

Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees

Hardcover

General World HistoryLawns, Trees, & ShrubsNature Writing

Publisher Price: $35.00

ISBN10: 0465097847
ISBN13: 9780465097845
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: Oct 18 2022
Pages: 448
Weight: 1.48
Height: 1.43 Width: 6.35 Depth: 9.43
Language: English
The epic story of the planet's oldest trees and the making of the modern world

Rich...fascinating.--The Wall Street Journal​

Humans have always revered long-lived trees. But as historian Jared Farmer reveals in Elderflora, our veneration took a modern turn in the eighteenth century, when naturalists embarked on a quest to locate and precisely date the oldest living things on earth. The new science of tree time prompted travelers to visit ancient specimens and conservationists to protect sacred groves. Exploitation accompanied sanctification, as old-growth forests succumbed to imperial expansion and the industrial revolution.

Taking us from Lebanon to New Zealand to California, Farmer surveys the complex history of the world's oldest trees, including voices of Indigenous peoples, religious figures, and contemporary scientists who study elderflora in crisis. In a changing climate, a long future is still possible, Farmer shows, but only if we give care to young things that might grow old.

Winner of the 2023 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History

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General World History