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Fire : a brief history / Stephen J. Pyne ; foreword by William Cronon.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Pyne, Stephen J., 1949-
- Series:
- Pyne, Stephen J., 1949- Cycle of fire
- Cycle of fire
- Weyerhaeuser environmental books
- Weyerhaeuser environmental book
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Fire--History.
- Fire.
- History.
- Physical Description:
- xvii, 204 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2001]
- Summary:
- A noted environmental historian describes the evolution of fire through prehistoric and historic times down to the present, examining contemporary attitudes from a long-range, informed perspective.
- Contents:
- Introduction: Kindling xv
- 1. Fire and Earth: Creating Combustion 3
- How Fire Came to Be 4
- How Life Accommodated Fire 14
- First Fire Today 20
- Touched by Fire 24
- 2. Frontiers of Fire (Part 1): Fire Colonizing by Hominids 27
- What Made Early Fires Effective 29
- First Contact: When Fire Arrives 34
- Lost Contact: When Fire Departs 38
- 3. Aboriginal Fire: Controlling the Spark 46
- Why They Burned 47
- Where and How They Burned 51
- Dying Fire: When the Firestick Leaves 57
- 4. Agricultural Fire: Cultivating Fuel 65
- The Fire in Agriculture's Hearth 65
- How to Cultivate Fire 67
- What They Meant to Each Other 82
- Rites of Fire 85
- 5. Frontiers of Fire (Part 2): Fire Colonizing by Agriculture 87
- How Conversion Leads to Colonization 88
- Stories from the Fire Frontier 90
- Comings and Goings of Agricultural Fire Today 97
- 6. Urban Fire: Building Habitats for Fire 102
- Hearth and House: Making a Home for Fire 102
- Built to Burn: A Fire Ecology for the City Combustible 106
- The Eternal Flame Invisible: Fire in the Industrial City 115
- 7. Pyrotechnics: Fire and Technology 119
- Prometheus Unchained 121
- Cycles of Pyrotechnology: How Fire Has Cooked the Earth 129
- Fire Powers: Controlled
- and Not-So-Controlled
- Fire as Mover and Shaker 133
- Fire in the Mind 137
- 8. Frontiers of Fire (Part 3): Fire Colonizing by Europe 139
- How Europe Expanded Fire's Realm 140
- How Europe Contained Fire's Realm 144
- How Europe Redefined Fire's Realm 151
- 9. Industrial Fire: Stoking the Big Burn 155
- How Industrial Combustion Has Added Fire 158
- How Industrial Combustion Has Subtracted Fire 160
- How Industrial Combustion Has Rearranged Fire Regimes 167
- 10. The Future of Fire: Burning Beyond the Millennium 172
- As the World Burns: What Is and Isn't Burning, and Where 173
- Still the Keeper of the Flame 182.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-193) and index.
- ISBN:
- 029598144X
- OCLC:
- 46936087
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