From the time of the continent's formation tens of millions of years ago as the Godwana twin of Antarctica, Australia has been dominated by fire much as its sister has been by ice. Now Stephen Pyne, one of our foremost environmental historians, proposes a major reinterpretation of the Australian experience by using fire and Australia to explain one another. He narrates the story of how fire came to Australia and interacted with the Australian biota and its human inhabitants, while at the s...

A provocative rethinking of how humans and fire have evolved together over time—and our responsibility to reorient this relationship before it's too late.The Pyrocene tells the story of what happened when a fire-wielding species, humanity, met an especially fire-receptive time in Earth's history. Since terrestrial life first appeared, flames have flourished. Over the past two million years, however, one genus gained the ability to manipulate fire, swiftly ...

A climate defined by wet and dry seasons, a mostly mountainous terrain, a biota prone to disturbances, a human geography characterized by a diversity of peoples all of whom rely on burning in one form or another: Mexico has ideal circumstances for fire, and those fires provide a unique perspective on its complex history.Narrating Mexico's evolution of fire through five eras, historian Stephen J. Pyne describes the pre-human, pre-Hispanic, colonial, industrializing (1880–1980), and ...

Grazie al fuoco l'uomo ha rimodellato la Terra. Il controllo delle fiamme ha consentito alla nostra specie di alterare il paesaggio per le attività di caccia e raccolta, e di alimentare automobili, case e apparecchi tecnologici bruciando combustibili fossili. Siamo saliti in cima alla catena alimentare perché abbiamo imparato a "cucinare" il paesaggio che ci circonda. Oggi siamo diventati una forza geologica perché abbiamo iniziato a "cucinare" l'intero pianeta. In questo libro Stephen ...

There are two basic rules for writing nonfiction, says historian and award-winning author Stephen J. Pyne. Rule 1: You can’t make stuff up. Rule 2: You can’t leave out known stuff that affects our understanding. Follow these rules, and you are writing nonfiction. Writing for different audiences and genres will require further guidelines. But all readers expect that style and story (or more broadly, theme) will complement one another.Style and Story is for those who wish to...

A climate defined by wet and dry seasons, a mostly mountainous terrain, a biota prone to disturbances, a human geography characterized by a diversity of peoples all of whom rely on burning in one form or another: Mexico has ideal circumstances for fire, and those fires provide a unique perspective on its complex history.Narrating Mexico’s evolution of fire through five eras, historian Stephen J. Pyne describes the pre-human, pre-Hispanic, colonial, industrializing (1880–1980), and ...

For more than 600 years, Western civilization has relied on exploration to learn about a wider world and universe. The Great Ages of Discovery details the different eras of Western exploration in terms of its locations, its intellectual contexts, the characteristic moral conflicts that underwrote encounters, and the grand gestures that distill an age into its essence.Historian and MacArthur Fellow Stephen J. Pyne identifies three great ages of discovery in his fascinating ...

Its monumental rocks, etched by glaciers during the last Ice Age, have made Yosemite National Park a crown jewel of the national park system and a world-celebrated destination. Yet, more and more, fire rather than ice is shaping this storied landscape.In the last decade, fire has blasted into public attention. California’s blazes have captured national and global media interest with their drama and urgency. Expand the realm of fire to include the burning of fossil fuels, and the fi...

From a fire policy of prevention at all costs to today's restored burning, Between Two Fires is America's history channeled through the story of wildland fire management. Stephen J. Pyne tells of a fire revolution that began in the 1960s as a reaction to simple suppression and single-agency hegemony, and then matured into more enlightened programs of fire management. It describes the counterrevolution of the 1980s that stalled the movement, the revival of reform after 1994, and th...

"Painting, architecture, politics, even gardening and golf—all have their critics and commentators," observes Stephen Pyne. "Fire does not." Aside from news reports on fire disasters, most writing about fire appears in government reports and scientific papers—and in journalism that has more in common with the sports page than the editorial page.Smokechasing presents commentaries by one of America's leading fire scholars, who analyzes fire the way another m...

"The fate of humanity, like the fate of the earth, is tied to the fires that have made the world as we know it�the fires whose history is told as well in this book as it has ever been told before. If one wants to understand just how completely the story of the human past is also the story of fire on earth, there is no better place to start than this small book."�William CrononHere, in one concise book, is the essential story of fire. Noted environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne de...

From boreal Alaska to subtropical Florida, from the chaparral of California to the pitch pine of New Jersey, America boasts nearly a billion burnable acres. In nine previous volumes, Stephen J. Pyne has explored the fascinating variety of flame region by region. In To the Last Smoke: An Anthology, he selects a sampling of the best from each.To the Last Smoke offers a unique and sweeping view of the nation’s fire scene by distilling observations on Florida, Califor...