Joachim Radkau sets himself the difficult task of unifying the huge and divergent literature from environmental and technological history that deals with wood, to synthesize a general treatment of the subject. “Is there a reason after all for the unsatisfying character of the existing literature? Is ‘wood’ as such too general a theme for a written history?” (p. 6) He blames the tendency of forest historians to focus only on their own particular interests, usually following narrow lines of enquiry into forest management, woodcrafts, wood as an energy source, and wood in the history of building. Radkau counters this specialization with a chronological narrative in which wood is the key player. He concentrates mainly on Central Europe, and particularly Germany. After a prehistory preamble, the story picks up in the late Middle Ages and carries through the European Industrial Revolution to the high-tech global economy of our own time. Along the way, the story takes up aspects of wood's history as it played out in America, Britain and its colonies, and Japan, among other places.

To tell this story, Radkau mines an extensive body of mostly secondary sources. His bibliography is just one of many fine attributes of this book. By engaging the subject so broadly, Wood: A History presents a multitude of interesting facts that make for an engrossing read in this idiomatic English translation. Here is but one: “The glacier mummy ‘Otzi’ from 5,300 years ago … had no fewer than seventeen different kinds of wood on it, each used for a particular purpose…” (14, 16).

More significantly, Radkau suggests many substantive avenues for future research. He lays out the multitude of uses to which wood and the forest have been put: as hunting preserve, pasture, energy source, building material, craft material, and so on. Not surprisingly, competition for this valuable resource set up conflicts over use and ownership that played out in different ways in different times and places. This book's singular perspective on the subject is its exploration of the political and institutional management of these conflicts.

Various technologies from smelting to potash production, structural engineering, to the use of wood in the production of paper and cellulose are given their place in this story with enough detail for readers to grasp their significance. But the thread that runs through the book is the environmental question of how the forest has managed to survive at all. One key was the establishment of ownership over forest resources (aristocratic or communal, individual or state). Important, too, was the part played by local farming interests: “Forest conservation is successful only when it coincides at least partially with the interests of people living there and the concepts they have of legal rights” (325).

By showing, as few others have, that the forest was not always over-exploited, and was often managed in sustainable ways, Radkau throws doubt on a central tenet of economic history, “that Europe's industrialization based on steel and coal was a response to the growing scarcity of wood.” He suggests instead, “In most regions, industrialization first proceeded on the basis of wood resources and animal and water power” (325). In fact, the availability and use of wood was key to early machinery innovations. He finds early examples of sustainable forestry in Central and Western Europe, and shows how it was practiced even as Japan began to industrialize. The American experience is another story altogether.

Radkau's findings suggest to him potential guidance for current forestry policy. While the book does not shy away from the difficulties faced in sustaining and conserving the forest globally, it ends on a cautiously optimistic note by pointing to early successes: “On a wide historical horizon, the forest and wood open our eyes to opportunities that culture and nature have to evolve together” (326).