{"product_id":"the-oak-and-the-larch-a-forest-history-of-russia-and-its-empires","title":"The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and Its Empires by Sophie Pinkham","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the steppes of Central Asia, Russia's forests account for nearly one-fifth of the world's wooded lands. \u003cem\u003eThe Oak and the Larch\u003c\/em\u003e is the first-ever English-language exploration of this vast expanse--a dazzling environmental history of Russia that offers an urgent new understanding of the nature of Russian power, and of Russia's ideas of itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInspired by the majestic oak, which towers over the country's western heartland, and the hardy Siberian larch, an emblem of survival in the east, award-winning scholar Sophie Pinkham's magisterial account spans centuries, revealing how forests have nourished ancient Siberian indigenous societies, defended medieval Slavic settlements from Mongol invasion, and served as both an essential natural resource and a potent cultural symbol for Russia in all its incarnations, from the days of the tsars to the Soviets to Putin's Federation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy examining the country from the forest's perspective, Pinkham pushes far beyond the contemporary political environment in Russia. She draws on literature, history, and art to connect the expanse of the Russian wilderness and the nature of Russian culture, with indelible portraits of the diverse figures who have inhabited and celebrated these forests: the legendary indigenous guide Dersu Uzala, giants of literature like Tolstoy and Chekhov, political thinkers like Kropotkin and even Stalin. She confronts the forest's role in Russia's long history of imperial conquest, and in resistance to this conquest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGorgeously written and surprising at every turn, \u003cem\u003eThe Oak and the Larch\u003c\/em\u003e offers a vision of Russia rarely seen in the west, as a land defined by its wilderness, shaped by its encounters with the frontier, and--much like our own--ultimately beholden to nature's whim.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[An] expansive, often absorbing study of the role of the wilderness in the Russian imagination . . . Pinkham is at her sharpest when examining the Soviet era and its aftermath. . . There is some striking nature writing here -- Pinkham's reporting on self-taught wolf researchers who live in pristine isolation near the Russian-Finnish border is especially vivid.--Joshua Hammer \"New York Times\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerceptive, wide-ranging, and gracefully written, \u003cem\u003eThe Oak and the Larch\u003c\/em\u003e is a momentous chronicle of Russia's vast and vital woodlands and their agency in a human history that touches us all. The lessons we follow from this sylvan past--and this book--will determine our future on Earth.--Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Oak and the Larch\u003c\/em\u003e gives us a new way to think about the history and present of Eurasia--as a place defined by how people have lived with trees. . . . Sophie Pinkham shows the vast range of relationships it's possible to have with the forest, from conquest to coexistence, offering urgent lessons for a time when living with our environments is so key.--Bathsheba Demuth, author of Floating Coast\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSophie Pinkham\u003c\/strong\u003e is a professor at Cornell University and a former NEH Public Scholar. Her writing on Russia and Ukraine has appeared in the \u003cem\u003eNew York Review of Books, New York Times, Guardian, New Yorker, \u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eHarper's\u003c\/em\u003e. She lives in Ithaca, New York.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45748439285946,"sku":"9781324036685","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0444\/2213\/5968\/files\/imageloader_789518e7-b2d3-4f00-9417-a90503d9b72b.jpg?v=1775058725","url":"https:\/\/naturenurture.shop\/products\/the-oak-and-the-larch-a-forest-history-of-russia-and-its-empires","provider":"nature+nurture","version":"1.0","type":"link"}