The Science Factory
London Book Fair 2020
FORTHCOMING TITLES
THE WOOD AGE How Our Relationship With Wood Transformed Us from Tiny Tree Shrews to World-dominating Industrialists ROLAND ENNOS Most histories of humanity begin with us coming down from the trees and striding out onto the plains, and then follow a hackneyed journey through the successive ages of stone, bronze and iron. This book tells a far longer and more enlightening story… How did we, the descendants of small arboreal primates, manage to stand on our own two feet, become top predators and spread about the world? How did we transform the world’s vegetation and build large settlements, develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? In THE WOOD AGE, Roland Ennos shows that the key to our success has been our relationship with a material usually whitewashed from world histories: wood. Drawing together recent research and reinterpreting our existing knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as primatology, anthropology, archaeology, history, architecture, engineering and carpentry, he charts for the first time how our ability to exploit wood’s unique properties has shaped our bodies and minds, societies and lives. Our binocular vision, upright stance and grasping hands, our intelligence and empathy, the ability to make and use tools, and even to walk on two legs – all evolved to help our ancestors live among the narrow wooden branches of the rainforest canopy. Wood was also vital to our success as huntergatherers: we burnt wood to keep warm, protect ourselves and cook our food, and carved it to make increasingly sophisticated weapons. Novel woodworking tools enabled us to clear forests, plough the land and build the first houses, boats and wheels. And during historical times wood shaped our culture and history through architecture, shipbuilding and industrialization, responsible for the rise and fall of empires and the emergence of the modern world. Wood is still among the world’s most important structural materials and fuels, and in the past 150 years we have learnt to transform it into a whole new range of wood products including paper, plywood and laminates. So great is the demand for these energy-intensive materials that their use is starting to degrade the global environment. At the same time, by treating trees as commodities, we have paradoxically begun to devalue wood and turn our back on it. We need, Ennos argues, to relearn what we have forgotten about trees and traditional woodworking practices. Because our relationship with wood is so engrained in us, for our own welfare and for the benefit of the planet we must return to more traditional ways of growing and using trees locally. We must return to the Wood Age. ROLAND ENNOS is a visiting professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull. An expert on the mechanics of wood and the design of trees, he has investigated how our fingers are modified for gripping, how apes move about and make their nests in the forest canopy, how early humans designed better axes to cut down trees and how we have managed and altered forests. In addition to over 120 scientific publications, he has written a popular book on trees for London’s Natural History Museum and several pieces for Physics World and the Conversation (including one on keeping your house warm which has been read one-and-a-half million times). Agent: Peter Tallack Publisher: Scribner (US)/William Collins (UK) Publication: Autumn 2020 Status: Draft manuscript Length: 80,000 words All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (William Collins), US & Canada (Scribner), China (United Sky (Beijing) New Media), Japan (NHK), Korea (Forest Book Publishing Co.)
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