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The Age of Wood
- Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
A “smart and surprising” (Booklist) “expansive history” (Publishers Weekly) detailing the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem — including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires — in the best-selling tradition of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky’s Salt.
As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood.
“A lively history of biology, mechanics, and culture that stretches back 60 million years” (Nature) The Age of Wood reinterprets human history and shows how our ability to exploit wood’s unique properties has profoundly shaped our bodies and minds, societies, and lives. Ennos takes us on a sweeping journey from Southeast Asia and West Africa where great apes swing among the trees, build nests, and fashion tools; to East Africa where hunter gatherers collected their food; to the structural design of wooden temples in China and Japan; and to Northern England, where archaeologists trace how coal enabled humans to build an industrial world. Addressing the effects of industrialization — including the use of fossil fuels and other energy-intensive materials to replace timber — The Age of Wood not only shows the essential role that trees play in the history and evolution of human existence, but also argues that for the benefit of our planet we must return to more traditional ways of growing, using, and understanding trees.
A brilliant blend of recent research and existing scientific knowledge, this is an “excellent, thorough history in an age of our increasingly fraught relationships with natural resources” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
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Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world - one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism, the leading source of the world's most popular drug, and perhaps the most widespread word on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's 500-year transformation from a mysterious Muslim ritual into an everyday necessity.
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Unfortunately
- By Brian on 06-06-20
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Craft
- An American History
- By: Glenn Adamson
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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A groundbreaking and endlessly surprising history of how artisans created America, from the nation’s origins to the present day. At the center of the United States’ economic and social development, according to conventional wisdom, are industry and technology - while craftspeople and handmade objects are relegated to a bygone past. Renowned historian Glenn Adamson turns that narrative on its head in this innovative account, revealing makers’ central role in shaping America’s identity.
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It's. a religious guy passing god.
- By Rickey Lee Kimball on 03-13-24
By: Glenn Adamson
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Atlantic
- Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Spanning the ocean's story, from its geological origins to the age of exploration, from World War II battles to today's struggles with pollution and overfishing, Winchester's narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring.
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Starts Better Than it Finishes
- By Ray on 12-18-10
By: Simon Winchester
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Sea People
- The Puzzle of Polynesia
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A thrilling, intellectual detective story that looks deep into the past to uncover who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know.
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Long Lost History
- By Than on 04-19-19
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Material World
- The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
- By: Ed Conway
- Narrated by: Ed Conway
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them will determine our future. In Material World, Ed Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates.
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Insightful
- By Sam on 01-17-24
By: Ed Conway
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Knowing What We Know
- The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom?
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By reader on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
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Nuts and Bolts
- Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way)
- By: Roma Agrawal
- Narrated by: Roma Agrawal
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Some of engineering's mightiest achievements are small in scale, even hidden—and yet, without them, the complex machinery on which our modern world runs would not exist. In Nuts and Bolts, Roma Agrawal examines seven of these extraordinary elements: the nail, the wheel, the spring, the lens, the magnet, the string, and the pump. From the physics behind both Roman nails and modern skyscrapers to rudimentary springs that inspired lithium batteries, Agrawal shows us how even the most sophisticated items are built on the foundations of these ancient and fundamental breakthroughs in engineering.
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Getting pregnant & using technology
- By Hank on 07-01-24
By: Roma Agrawal
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Color
- A Natural History of the Palette
- By: Victoria Finlay
- Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes—painted all the more dazzling by Finlay’s engaging style. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.
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A scrumptious, colorful adventure. Must read
- By Esio Trot on 07-26-23
By: Victoria Finlay
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The Secret Lives of Color
- By: Kassia St. Clair
- Narrated by: Kassia St. Clair
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of 75 fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from into a unique study of human civilization.
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More about pigments than social history
- By Jason Toon on 12-13-20
By: Kassia St. Clair
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Left for Dead
- Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters tells the story of a wild encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig, and a British warship in the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, the incident left three British sailors and two Americans including the captain of the sealer, Charles H. Barnard abandoned in the Falklands for eighteen months.
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Great history
- By Pullman on 07-31-24
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Salt
- A World History
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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So much of our human body is made up of salt that we'd be dead without it. The fine balance of nature, the trade of salt as a currency of many nations and empires, the theme of a popular Shakespearean play... Salt is best selling author Mark Kurlansky's story of the only rock we eat.
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More than SALT
- By Karen on 03-12-03
By: Mark Kurlansky
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The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
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Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
What listeners say about The Age of Wood
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sam E.
- 02-14-21
lots to learn from a scientist about wood!
this is a very knowledgeable author - a good read I can recommend to just about anyone
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1 person found this helpful
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- SushiXpress
- 07-14-24
Important book for recovering our lost relationship to wood
This was a great book and the author makes a solid point at the end. It offered so many insights regarding how we got to where we are vis-a-vis wood as well as clear direction for how to restore this most important relationship to our planet
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- Whitney Curry
- 11-08-21
good "read"
it was interesting. very salt like in detail. the use of "one or ones" was a little weird throughout the book by a writer. very informative and well researched.
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- zstreetmama
- 02-29-24
Well researched and presented
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Looking forward to listening to it a second time or buying it in print (a product of wood) ;-)
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- Chris Kadrmas
- 03-21-24
Excellent read/listen!
Well written and interesting blend of history and science. Easy voice to hear by the narrator as well, in my opinion. More from this author!
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- Richard Yates
- 08-03-21
Great text; poor narration
The Age of Wood explores the history of humans' relationship with wood and the ways it has shaped civilization. It is a polymath's delight and Roland Ennos weaves effortlessly through a wide range of topics all related to wood.
The narration, however, falls considerably short. A fundamental skill of good readers is to have a logical and graceful modulation of the voice, at all scales of time, that illuminates and clarifies the text. This skill is so fundamental that it is surprising to encounter a professional reader who seems oblivious to aspects of his own voice modulation.
The narrator of The Age of Wood is an upspeaker. He habitually ends sentences with a higher pitch on the last accented syllable of nearly every sentence. And the pitch that he hits is identical every time. While this technique is entirely reasonable in situations where an arc or continuity is desired between two or more sentences, his use of it is pervasive and eventually excruciating.
On the timescale of a chapter, there is a gradual and imperceptible raising of the pitch so that over the short pause from one chapter to the next, and presumably a new recording session, his voice drops precipitously. This provides a rare respite, even comic relief, from the inexorable pattern that soon resumes.
I apologize to listeners who may have not noticed such things in book narration and now are doomed to a new awareness if they listen to The Age of Wood.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Spencer Brown
- 02-03-21
Riveting, informative, and timely
Absolutely loved it. From start to finish, I could barely put it down. Might even try to learn some carpentry.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-12-21
odd cadence and pauses, but good overall
like others have said the narrator has an odd cadence. it can at times be distracting. there's also off pauses. to the point I have checked my phone thinking I was receiving a call. but the story is good and certainly worth the time to listen
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3 people found this helpful
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- Mare
- 04-21-21
Magnificent Wood
Oh what a great book! It was slow going only because there is so much fabulous information packed into just one or two sentences. The author is a walking dictionary of terms that I had long forgotten. The background startled me and I hung on every word. This story of wood is actually a page turner, similar to a great mystery. You judst cannot put it down. What are the next series of secrets he will reveal? A surprise war preceded the Boston Tea Party.?...never heard of it before. I learned so much in this book that sometimes my head hurt. Yes, a scientific background helps but none the less, it is a book that has to be readm all, it is that kind of good.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-26-21
The anthropology of wood!
A great treatise on wood, making me rethink the stone age, iron age, etc. Powerfully and interestingly backed up by quantification and sources. Highly recommended. I wooden kid you haha.
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