As one who was raised in an area where an extractive industry – in my case logging – was a key part of the local economy, I have long been familiar with the toll such industries can take on the land and the landscape if not practiced with a larger view to the sustained health kept clearly in mind.
Unfortunately, the history of such industries is not rich in such larger views having been taken. In his new book from Johns Hopkins University Press, The Slain Wood; Papermaking and Its Environmental Consequences in the American South, Professor William Boyd examines the history of one such industry and its effects upon the land of the region in which it was practiced.
