World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth (Pyne, Stephen J., Cycle of Fire.)

Back in Print--World Fire is the story of how fire and humans have coevolved. The two are inseperable, and together they have repeatedly remade the planet. "Stephen J. Pyne writes about fire as if he were on fire, with searing, consuming heat and light. When he looks at fire he sees not biological catastrophe but social illumination and natural renewal...This book will change the way you view fire--and the way you see us routinely fighting it." --Seattle Times- Publishers Weekly Over the millennia, contends Pyne, humans used fire to sustain slash-and-burn agriculture, and fires set judiciously or occurring spontaneously benefited ecosystems by exposing land to more sunlight, restructuring relationships among species, decomposing debris and fostering biodiversity. Lamenting today's ``obsessive fire control'' and the alleged global spread of ``Europe's pyrophobia,'' Pyne (Fire in America) maintains that ``most American ecosystems in fact suffer from a fire famine.'' Impassioned, often lyrical and sure to be controversial, this incendiary, not always convincing survey assesses fire use and fire-control practices in Australia, Russia, Brazil, Greece, Spain, India, Sweden and Antarctica. Charging that the U.S. Forest Service in the 1930s suppressed research data supporting the ecological value of controlled burning, Pyne maintains that current U.S. firefighting practices are mired in bureaucracy, confusion and overemphasis on the control of wildland fires. Illustrated. (Mar.) 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. -- Provided by publisher Dedication Contents Foreword • William Cronon Preface to the 1997 Paperback Edition Smoke Report The New World Order on Fire Size-Up Firestick History; or, How to Set the World on Fire Hotspotting Fire Flume (Australia) Veld Fire (South Africa) Queimada Para Limpeza (Brazil) Svedjebruk (Sweden) Greek Fire (Greece) La Nueva Reconquista (Iberia) Red Skies of Irkutsk (Russia) Nataraja (India) White Darkness (Antarctica) Control American Fire Initial Attack: The U.S. Forest Service Fights Fire Coldtrailing Wilderness Fire Vestal Fires and Virgin Lands The Summer We Let Wild Fire Loose Intermix Fire The Fire This Time Nouvelle Southwest Mop-Up Consumed by Either Fire or Fire After the Last Smoke Flame and Fortune Notes and Additional Reading Index Illustration Sources and Credits Back in PrintWorld Fire is the story of how fire and humans have coevolved. The two are inseparable, and together they have repeatedly remade the planet.“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“A sweeping historical treatise that examines our world's love/hate relationship with conflagration. His engrossing ideas leave bright embers in the memory.”—Outside