Eric Rutkow is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. He has worked as a lawyer on environmental issues across three continents. He currently splits his time between New York City and New Haven, Connecticut, where, in addition to writing, he is pursuing a doctorate in American History at Yale. This is his first book.
"AMERICAN CANOPY marks the debut of an uncommonly gifted young
historian and writer. Ranging across four centuries of history,
Eric Rutkow shows the manifold ways in which trees--and
woodland--and wood--have shaped the contours of American life and
culture. And because he has managed to build the story around
gripping events and lively characters, the book entertains as much
as it as informs. All in all, a remarkable performance!" --John
Demos, Samuel Knight Professor of History at Yale University, and
author of Entertaining Satan, winner of the Bancroft Prize in
American History, and The Unredeemed Captive, which was a finalist
for the National Book Award
"For those who see our history through the traditional categories
of politics, economics, and culture, a delightful feast awaits. In
this remarkably inventive book, Eric Rutkow looks at our national
experience through the lens of our magnificent trees, showing their
extraordinary importance in shaping how we lived, thrived, and
expanded as a people. A beautifully written, devilishly original
piece of work." --David Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
Polio: An American Story
"Right from its quietly shocking prelude--the cavalier and
surprisingly recent murder of the oldest living thing in North
America--Eric Rutkow's splendid saga shows, through a chain of
stories and biographical sketches that are intimate, fresh, and
often startling, how trees have shaped every aspect of our national
life. Here is the tree as symbol and as tool, as companion and
enemy, as a tonic for our spirits and the indispensable ingredient
of our every enterprise from the colonization voyages to the
transcontinental railroad to Levittown. The result, both
fascinating and valuable, is a sort of shadow history of America.
Toward the end of his finest novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes that
the 'vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's
house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of
human dreams.' AMERICAN CANOPY retrieves those trees and does
full-rigged (on tall, white pine masts) justice to the dream."
--Richard Snow, author of A Measureless Peril and former
Editor-in-Chief of American Heritage
"An even-handed and comprehensive history that could not be more
relevant...The woods, Rutkow's history reminds us again and again,
are essential to our humanity." --Business Week
"A deeply fascinating survey of American history through a
particularly interesting angle: down through the boughs of our
vanished trees." -Boston Globe
"An excellent book for both academics and general readers, this is
highly recommended." -Library Journal
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