With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
Average Rating: out of 3 Reviews
Price: $45.00
Sale: $74.99
Manufacturer: University of California Press
EAN (European Article Number): 9780520087750
Number of Items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Warren Dean
Publisher: University of California Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.28098109152
Publication Date: 1995-04
Reading Level: 504
Description: This text chronicles the chaotic path to what could be one of the greatest natural disasters of modern times: the disappearance of the Atlantic Forest. A quarter of the size of the Amazon Forest, and the most densely populated region in Brazil, the Atlantic Forest is now the most endangered in the world. It contains a great diversity of life-forms, some of them found nowhere else, as well as the country's largest cities, plantations, mines and industries. Continual clearing is ravaging most of the forested remnants. The story opens with the hunter-gatherers of 12,000 years ago and takes it up to the 1990s - through the invasion of Europeans in the 16th century; the ensuing devastation wrought by such developments as gold and diamond mining, slash-and-burn farming, coffee planting and industrialization; and the desperate battles between conservationists and developers in the late-20th century. Based on a great range of documentary and scientific resources, this book is enormously ambitious. More than a history of a tropical forest, or of the relationship between forest and humans, it is also a history of Brazil told from an environmental perspective.
Customer Reviews
Review Summary: A Great Book!
Date: 2004-09-07
Details: To read this book is to learn how a colonization exterminated the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Laws, economics process, natives agriculture, how the urbanization burned the forest and fens. Except the first chaptre, about the evolution of the forest by geologic times, all is perfect.
I use this book in my class - Geography of Brazil and the students love it. (...)
Review Summary: What can I say? It's great!
Date: 2000-02-08
Details: Having actually lived in the country and visited the Amazon rain forest, this depiction of the destruction of the Atlantic rainforest and the effects there is highly factual and rather interesting. It is one of the only successful ecological histories about a forest! If you want a good read about the disappearance of one of Brazil's most historical aspects, then this book is for you.
Review Summary: Impressive environmental history of Brazil
Date: 1999-11-04
Details: This book is bound to change your view of Brazilian history, and of environmental history. A must read for anyone interested in either. A good Portuguese language translation is available.
out of 3 Reviews
