Americans and their Forests

When Europeans first reached the land that would become the United States they were staggered by the breadth and density of the forest that they found. The existence of that forest, and the effort either to use or subdue it, has been a constant theme in American history, literature, economics, and geography up to the present day. In this magisterial and unprecedented book, Michael Williams tells us of the meaning of the forest in American history and culture; he describes and analyzes the clearing and use of the forest from pre-European times to the present, and he traces the subsequent regrowth of the forest since the middle of the twentieth century.