The Age of Wood

Sexy, but not as erotic as I was expecting.

The author clearly loves wood, and uses it as the red thread to take us on an exciting journey through the history of civilization. I loved this book, and the broad range of things that it taught me about, from architecture to metalworking and historic climate change.

This book describes the role of wood throughout human history. It is not long, about 280 pages plus bibliography. Given the large topic and the short length the author skips around. It is almost like a series of annecdotes arranged in chronological order. Considerable space is also given to discussion of stone and metal construction to the extent that I began to wonder if the author had changed his subject midway through writing. For me the biggest shortcoming is the lack of illustrations. There are several pages of photographs, but there are many brief descriptions that would benefit from a simple drawing. Problems aside, I enjoyed reading the book, and it gave me some ideas to contemplate.