With Broadax & Firebrand – Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest - Hardcover

Dean, Warren

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9780520087750: With Broadax & Firebrand – Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520087755 ISBN 13: 9780520087750

Publisher: University of California Press, 1995

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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.

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From the Back Cover:

"An unprecedented historical account of the destruction of Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a required reading for those committed to its preservation, written with genuine love and knowledge."--Jose Roberto Borges, Brazil Program Director, Rainforest Action Network

"After reading this volume, no one could fail to realize the uniqueness and importance of these coastal forests, which have played such a fascinating role in the history of Brazil."--Ghillean T. Prance, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

About the Author:

Warren Dean (1932-1994) was Professor of History at New York University. His books includeThe Industrialization of Sao Paulo (1969), Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System (1976), and The Struggle for Rubber in Brazil (1987). Stuart B. Schwartz is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.

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