The Groundbreaking Environmental History of Humanity

The Age of Wood / The Wood Age

How Wood Shaped the Course of Human History

Human prehistory is routinely split up into the succeeding ages of stone, bronze and iron, yet throughout our rise to global dominance from apes to industrialists, we have always used far more of another material – wood. We have used it to make our tools, build our houses, cook our food and power our industry.  And time and again, the new materials that we have developed have mainly improved how we shape wood, enabling us to use even more of it – to make wheels, construct better houses and build larger ships. They enabled us to create worldwide empires fashioned largely from wood. The Wood Age shows how our relationship with this natural material has shaped our evolution and cultural development, and how the battle for control of forests has driven the rise and fall of empires. And, despite what one might think, in the modern world, wood is still the single most important material we use. We are still living in The Wood Age.