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

Author's Note

AUTHOR'S NOTE How can I answer which is best Ofall the fires that burn? I have been too often host or guest At every fire in turn. -Rudyard Kipling, "The Fires" Vestal Fire is the fifth volume in the "Cycle of Fire" suite, and the most comprehensive of its narratives. The early Cycle had evolved opportunistically, its volumes a kind of Leatherstocking Tales, written as circumstances had made possible, which is to say, out of sequence, rife with gaps and overlaps, and void of a narrative driver. It fell to Vestal Fire to bring historical structure to this sprawl, to serve as a thematic locomotive that might, ifsuccessful, pull the other volumes in its train. That the Earth's fire history over the past five hundred years has been influenced profoundly by Europe makes this scheme plausible. The book represents my mature understanding of what a fire history can do and how it can be told. To it I have tried to invest something ofSpanish zeal, French clarity, German thoroughness, Russian sweep, Dutch detail, English eccentricity, and (yes) American naivete. If the book is to stand alone, as it should, it must revisit some topics contained in previous volumes, even to the point ofvirtually recycling essays (such as the fire history of Britain) or of retelling in fresh ways the experiences of British imperial forestry, for example, or the histories of European colonization in America and Australia. To the irritated or unimpressed, this will smack of repetition. To those anxious for connections or curious only about Europe, those points of contact should serve as welds and linchpins. What has ultimately resulted is a literary analogue to a fire-patched landxv xvi AUTHOR'S NOTE scape, some sites burned intensely, some lightly, some reburned, some missed. My hope is that for history, as for nature, a scene spot-burned or burned erratically is often better than one not burned at all. Many persons have assisted in this project, knowingly or not, willingly or not. Special mention first goes to the staffofthe Fletcher Library atArizona State University West, most notably Carol Hammond, Sondra Brough, and Elizabeth Smith. They were invariably efficient and ineffably cheerful, and without their indefatigable labors through interlibrary loans this book would not exist. Among those who assisted with translation are: Gunilla Oleskog (Swedish); Muriel Osborne and Rex Olpin (French); Henry Telitsyn, Richard McNabb, and Mrs. N. I. Veruigina (Russian); Hannele Mortensen (Finnish); Hartmuth Weismann and Johann Goldammer (German). Without their assistance, I could never have plumbed far into the national literatures that proved so rich in fire references. A Fulbright Fellowship took me and my family to Sweden for three months. This gave me the opportunity to plunge into Swedish and Finnish material. For their willing assistance (and excellent English) I want to thank Olle Zackrisson , Anders Granstrom, Lars Ostlund, Jonny Schimmel, Marie-Charlotte Nilsen, Gunilla Oleskog, and the rest at the Wallenberg Lab, Sveriges Landbruksuniversitet , UmdL Various European and American colleagues have helped with information and travels. I wish to thank, in particular, Ricardo Velez Munoz, Michael Williams, Alexander Dimitrakopoulos, Johan Goudsblom, Peter Lex, and Louis Trabaud. Cathy Frierson very generously lent me drafts ofchapters from her book on the social history of fire in European Russia, and shared information that otherwise would have been beyond my grasp. Three Russian scientists contributed, under contract, some very helpful essays on fire ecology and history: Henry Telitsyn, Nicolas Kurbatsky, and V. V. Furyaev. For a most productive expedition to the Soviet Union, I wish to thank various officials with Avialesookhrana, but especially Nicolai Andreev and Eduard Davydenko. Not least, I wish to thank my companion on those travels-and unfailing source of enthusiasm and references-Johann Georg Goldammer, Europe's outstanding fire ecologist and fellow pyromantic. Administrators and colleagues at Arizona State University West-the Little Campus That Could-made it possible for me to exploit a MacArthur Fellowship and have encouraged me in my unorthodox pursuits. That a new campus , rising out ofthe creosote and brittlebush ofdegraded desert, could support such an endeavor speaks volumes about its determination and future promise. Onno Brouwerand his colleagues at the University ofWisconsin Cartographic Laboratory made or remade a host of maps with care and clarity. The Lab has my thanks and will earn the gratitude of Vestal's readers. AUTHOR'S NOTE XVll William Cronon and Simon Schama read the manuscript, Bill at an early stage and Simon...