The Great Wood

Author: Jim Crumley
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 0857900900
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
The Great Wood of Caledon - the historic native forest of Highland Scotland - has a reputation as potent and misleading as the wolves that ruled it. The popular image is of an impassable, sun-snuffing shroud, a Highlandswide jungle infested by wolf, lynx, bear, beaver, wild white cattle, wild boar, and wilder painted men. Jim Crumley shines a light into the darker corners of the Great Wood, to re-evaluate some of the questionable elements of its reputation, and to assess the possibilities of its partial resurrection into something like a national forest. The book threads a path among relict strongholds of native woodland, beginning with a soliloquy by the Fortingall Yew, the one tree in Scotland that can say of the hey-day of the Great Wood 5,000 years ago: 'I was there.' The journey is enriched by vivid wildlife encounters, a passionate and poetic account that binds the slow dereliction of the past to an optimistic future.

Great Wood Finishes

Author: Jeff Jewitt
Publisher: Taunton Press
ISBN: 9781561582884
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
Provides step-by-step instructions on wood finishing techniques covering such topics as tools and materials, staining, glazing, and avoiding common mistakes.

The Great Wood

Author: Jim Crumley
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 0857900900
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Book Description
“Tackles the legend of the . . . forest said to have once stretched from coast to coast and to have covered much of the Scottish uplands and Highlands.” —The Herald The Great Wood of Caledon—the historic native forest of Highland Scotland—has a reputation as potent and misleading as the wolves that ruled it. The popular image is of an impassable, sun-snuffing shroud, a Highlandswide jungle infested by wolf, lynx, bear, beaver, wild white cattle, wild boar, and wilder painted men. Jim Crumley shines a light into the darker corners of the Great Wood, to re-evaluate some of the questionable elements of its reputation, and to assess the possibilities of its partial resurrection into something like a national forest. The book threads a path among relict strongholds of native woodland, beginning with a soliloquy by the Fortingall Yew, the one tree in Scotland that can say of the hey-day of the Great Wood 5,000 years ago: “I was there.” The journey is enriched by vivid wildlife encounters, a passionate and poetic account that binds the slow dereliction of the past to an optimistic future. “Crumley’s greatest talent lies in his ability to convey genuine sympathy for the wildlife he observes, and a somehow calming sense that, however much mankind might like to think itself above all that, we’re really all just part and parcel of the same continuum . . . A great antidote to modern life.” —Daily Record “An engaging read.” —BBC Wildlife Magazine “Crumley gives unique insight into the rich history of this land.” —Scottish Field

The Great North Wood

Author: Tim Bird
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910395363
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"Long ago the whole of Southern England was covered in forest. Over time, this woodland has been cut back, but small patches remain amidst the suburban sprawl of South-East London. The magic that once filled the ancient forest can still be felt. Memories of the Great North Wood are recorded in the place names - Forest Hill, Honour Oak. Stories are told of the bandits, outlaws and gypsies that once roamed the forest, and their presence can sometimes be sensed when the city is quiet. Tim Bird's longest work to date continues his interest in psychogeography and how memories live in the landscape."--Provided by publisher

The Wood for the Trees

Author: Richard Fortey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101875763
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

Book Description
From the author of Earth: An Intimate History, an exuberant "biography" of four acres of woodland, evoking a cosmos of living and inanimate things and imagining its millennia of existence A few years ago, award-winning scientist Richard Fortey purchased four acres of woodland in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire, England. The Wood for the Trees is the joyful, lyrical portrait of what he found there. With one chapter for each month, we move through the seasons: tree felling in January, moth hunting in June, finding golden mushrooms in September. Fortey, along with the occasional expert friend, investigates the forest top to bottom, discovering a new species and explaining the myriad connections that tie us to nature and nature to itself. His textured, evocative prose and gentle humor illuminate the epic story of a small forest. But he doesn't stop at mere observation. The Wood for the Trees uses the forest as a springboard back through time, full of rich and unexpected tales of the people, plants, and animals that once called the land home. With Fortey's help, we come to see a universe in miniature.

Understanding Wood Finishing

Author: Bob Flexner
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing
ISBN: 1607654164
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 711

Book Description
For more than 18 years, Bob Flexner has been inspiring woodworkers with his writings and teachings on wood finishing. Now, from this best-selling author comes the long-awaited and completely updated second edition of UNDERSTANDING WOOD FINISHING-the most practical, comprehensive book on finishing ever published. The first edition of UNDERSTANDING WOOD FINISHING has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and is widely regarded as the bible of wood finishing. "We use UNDERSTANDING WOOD FINISHING as the textbook for our students training to go into the furniture industry," says David Miles, wood technology professor at Pittsburg State University. "It's the best written, most accurate, and most thorough wood finishing book in print-by far."

The Wood that Built London

Author: C. J. Schüler
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
ISBN: 1913207501
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
'Meticulously researched yet accessible' GeographicalStanding in the busy streets of South London today, it is hard to imagine that much of this suburban townscape was once a vast wood, stretching unbroken for almost seven miles from Croydon to the Thames at Deptford. In The Wood That Built London, C.J. Schüler takes us on a journey through time, telling tales of invaders and trade guilds, map makers and soldiers, royals and working class people. From the 8th century to current conservation efforts, Schüler offers a fresh perspective on London's history, with tales of murder, Anglo-Saxon treasure, fires, pandemics, the blitz and more along the way. This compelling narrative history charts the fortunes of the North Wood from the earliest times: its ecology, ownership, management, and its gradual encroachment by the expanding metropolis.

Nature in Wood

Author: George Lehman
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9781565230064
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Book Description
Nature in Wood is a title by Fox Chapel Publishing

The Age of Wood

Author: Roland Ennos
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
A “smart and surprising” (Booklist) “expansive history” (Publishers Weekly) detailing the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem—including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires—in the bestselling tradition of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky’s Salt. As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood. “A lively history of biology, mechanics, and culture that stretches back 60 million years” (Nature) The Age of Wood reinterprets human history and shows how our ability to exploit wood’s unique properties has profoundly shaped our bodies and minds, societies, and lives. Ennos takes us on a sweeping journey from Southeast Asia and West Africa where great apes swing among the trees, build nests, and fashion tools; to East Africa where hunter gatherers collected their food; to the structural design of wooden temples in China and Japan; and to Northern England, where archaeologists trace how coal enabled humans to build an industrial world. Addressing the effects of industrialization—including the use of fossil fuels and other energy-intensive materials to replace timber—The Age of Wood not only shows the essential role that trees play in the history and evolution of human existence, but also argues that for the benefit of our planet we must return to more traditional ways of growing, using, and understanding trees. A brilliant blend of recent research and existing scientific knowledge, this is an “excellent, thorough history in an age of our increasingly fraught relationships with natural resources” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Wood

Author: Joachim Radkau
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745683614
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 591

Book Description
Ötzi the iceman could not do without wood when he was climbing his Alpine glacier, nor could medieval cathedral-builders or today's construction companies. From time immemorial, the skill of the human hand has developed by working wood, so much so that we might say that the handling of wood is a basic element in the history of the human body. The fear of a future wood famine became a panic in the 18th century and sparked the beginnings of modern environmentalism. This book traces the cultural history of wood and offers a highly original account of the connection between the raw material and the human beings who benefit from it. Even more, it shows that wood can provide a key for a better understanding of history, of the pecularities as well as the varieties of cultures, of a co-evolution of nature and culture, and even of the rise and fall of great powers. Beginning with Stone Age hunters, it follows the twists and turns of the story through the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution to the global society of the twenty-first century, in which wood is undergoing a varied and unexpected renaissance. Radkau is sceptical of claims that wood is about to disappear, arguing that such claims are self-serving arguments promoted by interest groups to secure cheaper access to, and control over, wood resources. The whole forest and timber industry often strikes the outsider as a world unto itself, a hermetically sealed black box, but when we lift the lid on this box, as Radkau does here, we will be surprised by what we find within. Wide-ranging and accessible, this rich historical analysis of one of our most cherished natural resources will find a wide readership.