Fire: A Brief History
Stephen J Pyne

Fire: A Brief History
Stephen J Pyne
What does a full-blown Fire Age look like? We are about to find out, and Australia will feel the looking-glass transition from an ice world to a fire world more fully and suddenly than elsewhere.
Over vast expanses of time, fire and humanity have interacted to expand the domain of each, transforming the earth and what it means to be human. In this concise yet wide-ranging book, Stephen J. Pyne - named by Science magazine as ‘the world’s leading authority on the history of fire’ - explores the surprising dynamics of fire before humans, fire and human origins, aboriginal economies of hunting and foraging, agricultural and pastoral uses of fire, fire ceremonies, fire as an idea and a technology and industrial fire.
Speaking directly to humanity’s ancient alliance with fire - at once a mutual-assistance pact and a Faustian bargain - this revised and expanded second edition looks to the future of fire as a constant, defining presence on earth in which megafires have become routine, large swathes of landscape suffer a fire famine and unremitting industrial combustion promises to create the fire-informed equivalent of an ice age - an epoch that Pynes calls the Pyrocene.
In this Australian edition, Pyne discusses in a new preface how the Aboriginal firestick has become an emblem of cultural recovery, and how it may now find itself as a lever of resilience amid the Pyrocene.
This item is in-stock and will ship in 2-3 business days
We are currently experiencing delays in processing and delivering online orders. Click here for more information.
Please note, our stock data is updated overnight, and availability may change throughout the day. Prices are subject to change without notice.Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.

Culture is Life
$39.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Black Summer
$34.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Dizzy Limits: Recent Experiments in Australian Nonfiction
$29.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia
$39.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

The Momentous, Uneventful Day
$24.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

The Best Australian Science Writing 2020
$32.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Witness
$34.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Fire Flood and Plague
$29.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Culture is Life
$39.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

The Act of Living
$34.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Black Summer
$34.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Intimacy and Solitude
$29.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Berlin: The Story of a City
$32.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

The Diet Compass
$32.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

Ageless
$29.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...

FLY: Financially Literate Youth
$29.99Buy now
Finding stock availability...