John Perlin – författare

A Foundational Conservation Story RevivedAncient writers observed that forests always recede as civilizations develop and grow. The great Roman poet Ovid wrote that before civilization began, “even the pine tree stood on its own very hills” but when civilization took over, “the mountain oak, the pine were felled.”This happened for a simple reason: trees have been the principal fuel and building material of every society over the millennia, from the time urban areas were settled until the middle of the nineteenth century. To this day trees still fulfill these roles for a good portion of the world’s population.Without vast supplies of wood from forests, the great civilizations of Sumer, Assyria, Egypt, Crete, Greece, Rome, the Islamic World, Western Europe, and North America would have never emerged. Wood, in fact, is the unsung hero of the technological revolution that has brought us from a stone and bone culture to our present age.Until the ascendancy of fossil fuels, wood was the principal fuel and building material from the dawn of civilization. Its abundance or scarcity greatly shaped, as A Forest Journey ably relates, the culture, demographics, economy, internal and external politics and technology of successive societies over the millennia. The Forest Journey was originally published in 1989 and updated in 2005. The book's comprehensive coverage of the major role forests have played in human life -- told with grace, fluency, imagination, and humor -- gained it recognition as a Harvard Classic in Science and World History and as one of Harvard's "One Hundred Great Books." Others receiving the honor include such luminaries as Stephen Jay Gould and E.O. Wilson. This is a foundational conservation story that should not be lost in the archives. This new, updated and revised edition emphasizes the importance of forests in the fight against global warming and the urgency to protect what remains of the great trees and forests of the world.

Tells the entire story of humankind’s use of solar energy, reaching all the way back 6,000 years to stone age China and then bringing the story all the way up to now. The only book in existence that attempts to tell the entire story of humankind’s more than 6,000 year use of solar energy. Most people think of solar power as being a 20th century invention. Few know that the first photovoltaic cells joined the grid on a New York City rooftop in 1881; or that engineers in France used solar power to run steam engines in 1860s; or that in 1901 an ostrich farmer in Southern California used a solar engine with a massive 33-1/2 foot mirrored dish to irrigate 300 acres of trees by pumping 1,400 gallons of water every minute from a reservoir using nothing but the power of the sun. And these are just a few of the incredible stories that will be told in the book. Author John Perlin began telling this story in 1980 with the first edition of their book A Golden Thread, which then went back 2,500 years and covered up through the late 70s. The book sold 55,000 copies and received rave reviews, with the reviewer for The Los Angeles Times calling it a “humbling book” and a “rich mine of information.” The New York Times called it “A clear and evocative account of the 2,500-year history of a technology – solar energy – that many people thought was a purely 20th century development” and The Washington Post gave the book an even stronger review calling it a “careful, thoughtful” book that touches on “an awesome range of solar uses and issues.” Lester Brown, Founder of the Worldwatch institute has said, “A Golden Thread has become a classic” and a contributor to the popular energy blog “The Oil Drum” wrote that it is “like The Prize but from a solar perspective.”