REVIEWS OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS: 'An authoritative, readable and attractively illustrated book...it is likely to be a much cited, definitive work for a long time to come.' Ian Whyte, Landscape History 'I thoroughly recommend it to ecologists, historians, and anyone liking a good story.' Oliver Rackham, Agricultural History Review 'This well-produced book has been a great pleasure for me to read and, indeed, I wish it had been written years ago so I could have recommended it during my course on Quaternary paleoecology! Every one of the colour plates is appropriate and attractive.!I stress again my admiration of this book.' James H Dickson, Environmental History (January 2006) 'An excellent combination of detailed case studies and more general reviews! a particular strength of the book is that it does not deal with these industries in isolation, but shows how the management, felling and regeneration of trees and woodlands was intricately connected with grazing! The careful analysis by the authors of a wide range of sources is exemplary and the results are of great interest and value.
Edinburgh University Press should be congratulated for the high production quality, including excellent colour plates, historical photographs, and maps and diagrams. This important book should be required reading for all interested in the economic and environmental history of the woodlands.' Charles Watkins, Economic History Review '[Tells] the more fundamental story of trees and woods in our history, in great detail, but always with a firm sense of narrative. It is a tribute not only to the authors' multidisciplinary talents but also to the renaissance of woodland studies north of the border.' British Wildlife Now available in paperback, the first modern history of Scottish woodlands explores the changing relationship between trees and people from the time of Scotland's first settlement, focusing on the period 1500 to 1920. Drawing on work in natural science, geography and history, as well as on the authors' own research, it presents an accessible and readable account that balances social, economic and environmental factors. Two opening chapters describe the early history of the woodlands.
The book is then divided into chapters that consider traditional uses and management, the impact of outsiders on the pine woods and the oakwoods in the first phase of exploitation, and the effect of industrialisation. Separate chapters are devoted to case studies of management at Strathcarron, Glenorchy, Rothiemurchus and on Skye.