This book investigates the economic, strategic, and political importance of forests in early modern and modern Europe.

Introduction; 1. The lay of the land; 2. 'Agromania' and silvicultural science; 3. 'A necessity as vital as bread'; 4. 'Seduced by the word 'liberty''; 5. 'Nothing is more respected than the right of property'; 6. 'Not even a branch of wood has been granted to us'; 7. Epilogue: 'homo is but arbor inversa'.

Kieko Matteson is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Hawai¿i, M¿noa. Her dissertation received the American Society for Environmental History's Rachel Carson Prize and Yale University's Henry A. Turner Prize for outstanding work in European history.