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CYCLE OF FIRE

Stephen J. Pyne

Cycle of Fire is a suite of books that collectively narrate the story of how fire and humanity have interacted to shape the Earth. “Cycle” is an apt description of how fire functions in the natural world. Yet “cycle” also bears a mythic connotation: a set of sagas that tell the life of a culture hero. Here that role belongs to fire. Ranging across all continents and over thousands of years, the Cycle shows Earth to be a fire planet in which carbon-based terrestrial life and an oxygen-rich atmosphere have combined to make combustion both elemental and inevitable. Equally, the Cycle reveals humans as fire creatures, alternately dependent upon and threatened by their monopoly over combustion. Fire’s possession began humanity’s great dialogue with the Earth. Cycle of Fire tells, for the first time, that epic story.

World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth

Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe’s Encounter with the World

Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire

Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia

The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica

Cycle of Fire is part of Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books, published by the University of Washington Press under the general editorship of William Cronon. A complete list of Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books appears at the end of this book.