This book is just amazing and would make a great gift for history lovers, nature lovers, architects, fans of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, etc. The updated version has amazing photos and documentatation.
It gives a long view of human history and shows us that there's nothing new under the sun - humans have been raping and pillaging the land since the dawn of civilization. And the same dumb behaviors just keep repeating themselves because we think we don't have to learn from our mistakes - that if we just keep conquering, keep moving, keep innovating, and strategizing, that we'll stay ahead of the curve.
Another super-duper human quality that hasn't moved much is the sense of superiority over foreign cultures spiced up with a twisted sort of "appreciation" for native peoples - the noble savage trope isn't new, the Romans viewed the Germans like Europeans imagined the Native Americans. Pliny describes Germany as pristine..."untouched by the ages - and I love this quote from Cesar "There is no man in Germany we know, who can say that he has reached the edge of the forest...or who has learnt in what place it begins." As if the natives knew nothing about their territory because they didnt view it with the same lens or speak about it in the same terms as the conquerers.

Only negative point is that the historical information starts to get a bit repetitive, but I think that's the point, that the cycles keep repeating themselves over and over again. Some people might use the information therein to say that man has been taking resources from the earth for so long and we've always found a way out, thus we always will, but I think it's pretty obvious that the scale just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger...
Anyway, highly recommended!
Thanks to Patagonia and NetGalley for access to a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review! Just sad that I couldn't finish all of it before it archived :(

Very comprehensive in covering thousands of years of cutting down trees.

This book had a new edition released in February 2023 by Patagonia, which adds many photos and images in addition to text material. It’s hard for me to determine exactly all that is new, but certainly anything that is dated after the original release in 1989.

The book covers just about all of human civilization, going way back to when people started using trees for nearly everything. From building fires to keep warm, houses and buildings, tools, furniture and really just about everything. When we reach the iron age wood is needed for fuel to burn in the furnaces. In the later centuries wood was needed for ship building, particularly large trees for masts.

Wood has been part of human life and civilization growth since the beginning, and yet it has always been treated as an endless source that will never disappear. Perlin shows us that is otherwise, how landscapes have changed.

There is a bit of focus on the clearcutting that went on since the beginning of human civilizations with a focus on the west. Perlin does try to cover the globe but misses a few areas, several I wished he did cover (Easter Island for one). The bulk of the book discusses England then a larger section, nearly a third of the book, is about North America.

It seems humans have learned nothing about destroying forests, about what happened in the past, nor about how acting only for the immediate now will effect the future.

At times I found the information overwhelming in repetition of deforestation, and other times amazed at how many things wood is used for. I learned about countries and history and without forests, trees, wood, we would not able to sustain our way of life today. And yet we cannot regrow ancient forests, quickly. Some trees need to be left to grow, and certainly we can have some for use.

Did I mention the beautiful photographs? This is an incredible book.

Originally published in 1989 and wonderfully refreshed for 2023 by Patagonia, A Forest Journey celebrates – with beauty, grace, and reverence – the major role that forests have played in human life. This is a stunning book about the cathedrals of nature that most of us don't pay anywhere near enough attention to... and a welcome reminder to slow down, look up, marvel, and do what we can to protect these heroes of our past, present, and hopefully our futures.