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Summer Beam Books

World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth by Stephen J. Pyne

World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth by Stephen J. Pyne

$30.00 USD
$30.00 USD
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World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth by Stephen J. Pyne

ISBN: 0295975938    EAN: 9780295975931
Publisher: University of Washington Press 
US SRP: $30.00 US  
Binding: Paperback
Copyright Date: 1997
Pub Date: May 01, 1997
Physical Info: 0.99" H x 9.22" L x 6.2" W (1.24 lbs) 408 pages

World Fire is the story of how fire and humans have coevolved, like the bonded strands of a DNA molecule. The prevalence of humans is largely attributable to their control over fire, and the distribution and characteristics of fire have become deeply dependent on humans. The two are inseparable, and together they have repeatedly remade the landscape. Author Stephen Pyne surveys the emerging geography of global fire, exploring fire in order to learn more about history. Contrary to popular belief, there is probably a lot less fire on the planet today than when Columbus sailed, and through a global sampling of major fire situations, Pyne follows fire into the contemporary world of unsettled ecology, where there is too much fire in the wrong places and, thanks to unwarranted fire suppression, too little fire in the right places. Obsessive fire control has become itself a disordering process, and in much of the world it is the control of fire that is out of control. Pyne looks at the future of this elemental force and argues that eliminating it will not save the planet from destruction but will only abolish the regenerative powers that it once implemented.


Stephen J. Pyne is a professor in the Biology and Society Program at Arizona State Universty. He is the author of many books, including Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910 and Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon. Fire: A Brief History is the sixth volume in Pyne's Cycle of Fire, which also includes Vestal Fire, World Fire, Burning Bush, The Ice and Fire in America.

Review Quote:

"Pyne considers the evolution of fire in such diverse regions as Australia, Africa, Brazil, Sweden, Greece, Iberia, Russia, and India and then ponders Antarctica, the land without fire. As he examines changing techniques for and attitudes toward fire control, Pyne challenges our concepts of nature and wilderness and explains why the study and management of fire have tremendous environmental, cultural, and political implications."-- Booklist

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