Forests: The Shadow of Civilization

The narrative of the book runs chronologically to the dawn of written history to Frank Lloyd Wright, though the vast majority of figures discusses are writers, and of those primarily writers of nonfictional literature. Harrison discusses an immense range of writers and works, from the EPIC OF GILGAMESH to Chaucer to Dante to Shakespeare to Descartes to Rousseau to Wordsworth to the Brothers Grimm to Thoreau. Although Harrison's prose style is not exhilarating, I never found the book to be less than interesting.

Whether someone will find this interesting will depend on whether they want to know more about the way that forests have been conceived in European history. At various periods of time they have been view as scared, as dark places of fear, as resources for human exploitation, or as ecosystems valuable in their own right. Harrison does not touch upon all these aspects, but I don't think anyone interested in Western attitudes towards nature could help but find this book to be of the greatest help.


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Harrison explains that he is writing a "a physic history from which empirical history derives its inspiration." It is a history of the place of forests in the western psyche. For example, Harrison writes, "But why should forests haunt the mind like some mystical dream or nightmare that every now and then spreads its long, prehisotrical shadows over the ordinary clarity of things modern? On the basis of what "data of prehistory,"...does the forest become dense with associations and monstrous fears?"

His meta narrative is as follows: "Civilization define[s] itself at the outset over and against the forests." There has always been an antagonism between human culture centers and forests. Forests are a huge part of today's cultural memory.

His method is to scan works of culture, namely literature, for expressions of an attitude towards forests. His "ages" include your basic Greeks, Romans, medieval, Renaissance/humanism, Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernity.

Criticisms: Frequently looks at a bit of literature and concludes "forests were..." or "forests were becoming..." Harrison doesn't make explicit to whom they were "becoming..." That is, he is not too critical about the authors of his sources or the nature of their audiences. Did the limited reading audiences cut down the trees? If not, what were the concrete mechanisms of deforestation? He writes, here is the attitude, then, here is the scope of deforestation, there's no connection in between.
Harrison also has little respect for chronology; for example, Moses becomes an example of the medieval mindset.