Part One: Feral Trees -- The Tree of Heaven -- In a Dappled World -- A branching Heuristic -- Part Two: Garden and Forest -- In the Tree Museum -- From Ailanthus to Apple -- The Charter of the Forests -- Part Three: A Dark Abundance -- The Tree and/in History -- With and Without Us.
Summary:
"Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Tree explores the forms, uses, and alliances of this living object's entanglement with humanity, from antiquity to the present. Trees tower over us and yet fade into background. Their lifespan outstrips ours, and yet their wisdom remains inscrutable, treasured up in the heartwood. They serve us in many ways--as keel, lodgepole, and execution site--and yet to become human, we had to come down from their limbs. In this book Matthew Battles follows the tree's branches across art, poetry, and landscape, marking the edges of imagination with wildness and shadow."-- Provided by publisher. "Explores via art and literature our complicated material and economic entanglements with trees and their products"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.