Fire : a brief history
The fate of humanity, like the fate of the Earth, is tied to the fires that have made the world as we know it. This book describes the evolution of fire through prehistoric times to the present, examining contemporary attitudes from a wide perspective.
History
xvii, 204 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
9780714127620, 0714127620
47674843
Foreword : small book, big story / William Cronon
Introduction : kindling
1. Fire and Earth : creating combustion
How fire came to be
How life accommodated fire
First fire today
Touched by fire
2. Frontiers of fire (part 1) : fire colonizing by hominids
What made early fires effective
First contact : when fire arrives
Lost contact : when fire departs
3. Aboriginal fire : controlling the spark
Why they burned
Where and how they burned
Dying fire : when the firestick leaves
4. Agricultural fire : cultivating fuel
The fire in agriculture's health
How to cultivate fire
What they meant to each other
Rites of fire
5. Frontiers of fire (part 2) : fire colonizing by agriculture
How conversion leads to colonization
Stories from the fire frontier
Comings and goings of agricultural fire today
6. Urban fire : building habitats for fire
Hearth and house : making a home for fire
Built to burn : a fire ecology for the city combustible
The eternal flame invisible : fire in the industrial city
7. Pyrotechnics : fire and technology
Prometheus unchained
Cycles of pyrotechnology : how fire has cooked the Earth
Fire powers : controlled, and not-so-controlled
Fire as mover and shaker
8. Frontiers of fire (part 3) : fire colonizing by Europe
How Europe expanded fire's realm
How Europe contained fire's realm
How Europe redefined fire's realm
9. Industrial fire : stoking the big burn
How industrial combustion has added fire
How industrial combustion has subtracted fire
How industrial combustion has rearranged fire regimes
10. The future of fire : burning beyond the millennium
As the world burns : what is an isn't burning and where
Still the keeper of the flame