Title:
Vestal fire : an environmental history, told through fire, of Europe and Europe's encounter with the world / Stephen J. Pyne ; foreword by William Cronon.
Author:
Pyne, Stephen J., 1949-
Publication Information:
Seattle : University of Washington Press, ©1997.
Call Number:
SD421.34.E85 P95 1997
Abstract:
"Stephen Pyne takes the reader on a journey through time, exploring the terrain of Europe and the uses and abuses of these lands as well as, through migration and conquest, many parts of the rest of the world." "Vestal Fire takes its title from Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth and keeper of the sacred fire on Mount Olympus. But the book's title also suggests the strength and limitations of Europe's peculiar conception of fire, and through fire, of its relationship to nature. Between the untamed fire of the wilderness and the tended fire of the hearth lies a never-ending dialectic in which human beings struggle to control natural forces and processes that in fact can sometimes be directed but never wholly dominated or contained."--Jacket.
ISBN:
9780295975962
9780295979489
Series:
Cycle of fire
Cycle of fire.
Physical Description:
xvii, 659 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.
Contents:
Foreword / William Cronon -- Bk. 1. Elements -- Flame -- Diamond in the Rough: A Physical Geography of European Fire -- New Worlds from Old: A Biogeography of European Fire -- Fusain and Flame: A Natural History of European Fire -- Torch -- Errant Fire: The Hominid Colonization of Europe -- Cultivated Fire: The Agricultural Reclamation of Europe -- Pyrotechnia: The Technology of Combustion -- Hearth -- Domiciled Fire: Hearth and House -- The Fire in the Cave: Combustion and Cognition -- Need-Fire, Vestal Fire: Ceremony and Ritual -- Bk. 2. Europe -- Eternal Flame: Fire in Mediterranean Europe -- Prologue: West of Eden -- Behold, Before a Garden, Behind a Waste -- Arcadia and Anarchy: Mediterranean Pastorale -- Grand Traverse: Imperial France -- Mediterranean Miniature: Cyprus -- Epilogue: Fin-de-Siecle Fire -- Controlled Combustion: Fire in Central Europe -- Prologue: Ashes and Embers -- Landnam: The Fire of First Contact -- Reclamation: The Fire in the Garden -- Revolution: The Enlightenment Comes to Agriculture -- Revolution Redux: Forestry Takes Command -- Epilogue: Holocaust -- Wild Hearth: Fire in Boreal Europe -- Prologue: Fire and Water -- Fire and Sword: The Historia of Olaus Magnus -- Fire and Ax: The Finnish Colonization -- Fire and Field: The Travels of Linnaeus -- Fire and Iron: The Adventures of Nils -- Epilogue: Final Flame -- Flaming Front: Fire in Eurasian Europe -- Prologue: Wooden Rus' Is like a Fire -- The Candle and the Torch -- Lines of Fire, Fields of Fire -- Emancipation and Suppression -- When the Sky Burned -- Epilogue: Fire in the Minds of Men -- Spot Fires: Fire in Atlantic Europe -- Prologue: Sparks in the Wind -- It Was All a Planted Garden: The British Isles -- Green Fire: The Celtic Isle -- Northern Mists, Northern Smoke: The Norse Islands -- Blessed Isles, Burned Isles: The Iberian Islands -- Epilogue: The World Encompassed -- Bk. 3. Earth -- Islands -- New Fire: The Coming of Anthropogenic Fire -- Strange Fire: The Coming of European Fire -- Sacred Fire: The Coming of Conservation -- Continents -- Carrying the Fire: Europe Expands -- Counter Fire: Europe Contains -- Fire in the Ashes: Europe Rekindles -- Planets -- Conduction: The European Connection -- Radiation: The Neo-Europes -- Convection: Black Death, Heat Death -- Epilogue: Beyond the Realm of Fire.
Personal Author:
