Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by William Cronon

Author’s Notes

Prologue: Quest for Fire

Book 1: Elements

Flame

Diamond in the Rough: A Physical Geography of European Fire

New Worlds from Old: A Biogeography of European Fire

Fusain and Flame: A Natural History of European Fire

Torch

Errant Fire: The Hominid Colonization of Europe

Cultivated Fire: The Agricultural Reclamation of Europe

Pyrotechnia: The Technology of Combustion

Hearth

Domiciled Fire: Hearth and House

The Fire in the Cave: Combustion and Cognition

Need-Fire, Vestal Fire: Ceremony and Ritual

Book 2: Europe

Eternal Flame: Fire in Mediterranean Europe

Prologue: West of Eden

Behold, Before a Garden, Behind a Waste

Arcadia and Anarchy: Mediterranean Pastorale

Grand Traverse: Imperial France

Mediterranean Miniature: Cyprus

Epilogue: Fin-de Siecle Fire

Controlled Combustion: Fire in Central Europe

Prologue: Ashes and Embers

Landnam: The Fire of First Contact

Reclamation: The Fire in the Garden

Revolution: The Enlightenment Comes to Agriculture

Revolution Redux: Forestry Takes Command

Epilogue: Holocaust

Wild Hearth: Fire in Boreal Europe

Prologue: Fire and Water

Fire and Sword: The Historia of Olaus Magnus

Fire and Ax: The Finnish Colonization

Fire and Field: The Travels of Linnaeus

Fire and Iron: The Adventures of Nils

Epilogue: Final Flame

Flaming Front: Fire in Eurasian Europe

Prologue: Wooden Rus' Is like a Fire

The Candle and the Torch

Lines of Fire, Fields of Fire

Emancipation and Suppression

When the Sky Burned

Epilogue: Fire in the Minds of Men

Spot Fires: Fire in Atlantic Europe

Prologue: Sparks in the Wind

It Was All a Planted Garden: The British Isles

Green Fire: The Celtic Isle

Northern Mists, Northern Smoke: The Norse Islands

Blessed Isles, Burned Isles: The Iberian Islands

Epilogue: The World Encompassed

Book 3: Earth

Islands

New Fire: The Coming of Antropogenic Fire

Strange Fire: The Coming of European Fire

Sacred Fire: The Coming of Conservation

Continents

Carrying the Fire: Europe Expands

Counter Fire: Europe Contains

Fire in the Ashes: Europe Rekindles

Planets

Conduction: The European Connection

Radiation: The Neo-Europes

Convection: Black Death, Heat Death

Epilogue: Beyond the Realm of Fire

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Promotional Information

Stephen Pyne's Vestal Fire is an astounding tour de force, even by this writer's demandingly high standards: nothing less than a total history of the western conception, practice, and response to fire through (at least) three millennia. -- Simon Schama, author of Landscape and Memory

About the Author

Stephen J. Pyne is professor of history at Arizona State University. He is the author of nine other books, including Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon.

Reviews

"Vestal Fire is Stephen Pyne's masterpiece. In it, he offers nothing less than a retelling of all of European history from a vantage point no other historian has ever adopted so consistently before: that of the fire which in Pyne's view burns at the very heart of Western civilization.""
*from the Foreword*

"Vestal Fire can be described as Pyne’s masterpiece, a prodigious and eloquent narration of European history spanning several millennia, woven together by a common thread, fire."
*Choice*

"A work of marvelous intellectual force and considerable learning."
*Atlantic Monthly*

"No one is better qualified to teach us about fire’s history, fire’s crucial role in shaping landscapes, than Stephen Pyne. His discussions of forestry, land-management elitism, pastoral incendiarism, nature reserves, the conservation movement and the ecology of disturbance are profoundly valuable."
*New York Times Book Review*