Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees (review)

Between Earth and Sky is a wonderful study on trees by a world-renowned canopy biologist, weaving personal stories, scientific knowledge, poetry and—although to a much lesser extent—photography into a very readable companion to all one may want to know about trees (this is the point of view of the reader) as well as to all one should know about them (this would be the point of view of the author, who does much more than just love the object of her research). In the first place, however, this is a feel-good book with a clear message: Trees are not just a fascinating part of nature, they are also immensely profitable for humans.

Having received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support the public dissemination of her work, Nadkarni knows how to raise interest in her passion for trees among a wide range of audiences, including those who never go to science museums or read books. The author's strong commitment as well as her ability to entertain—in the good sense of the word––are well illustrated in Between Earth and Sky, which does tackle the issue from a very singular perspective, namely the way trees help us to be(come) more human. It explains what trees are, how they are built, how they function in their environment and how they form forests, but not why cultures have selected this or that "idea" of a tree (why we want trees to resemble human bodies, or vice versa, for instance), nor why certain ideas of trees are being challenged or chased by other ones (what does Deleuze's plea for the rhizome, which brings him explicitly to make a case against trees, mean for the cultural paradigm we are living in?). In short, Nadkarni's science is real science (and one really learns a lot) but it remains light science (and after reading this book one understands why Nadkarni receives so many invitations to speak to all kind of audiences, from political lobby groups to churchgoers). As a corollary, the environmentalist issues are of course present throughout the book—and one can only admire the author's acute sense of an ethics of care—but the level on which Nadkarni discusses them is always the strictly personal one: People first have to understand what trees can mean for them; then they will behave differently and life will become nicer and brighter. Her proposal to reduce the recidivism rate in state prison through gardening can be a good example of this attitude. A dendrophile myself, I will not contest these benefits, but the author's innate optimism and good temper are sometimes a little one-dimensional. Therefore, the reader will have to complement this study with darker ones, such as Robert Pogue Harrison's Forests: The Shadow of Civilization (1992), a cultural and literary history of the "deforestation" of the Western imagination (usefully included by the author herself in the final list of recommended readings).

The basic structure of the book obeys two different logics. First of all, Nadkarni follows Abraham Maslow's well-known schema of human needs (cf. his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation") and expands it in a personal version that resembles —yes—a kind of Christmas tree with eight layers: physical needs, security, health, play and imagination, time and history, symbols and language, spirituality, and mindfulness. Each of the chapters (after an introductory chapter offering some very interesting basic information on the definition of trees and forests, with amazing insights on the study of canopy life) gives a global overview of what trees have to offer in all these respects—always with a very emphasis on the positive aspects of trees. In Nadkarni's worldview, trees only give shelter; they never kill people when they fall upon them, so to speak. In spite of...