The Wood Age: How one material shaped the whole of human history

Roland Ennos’ The Wood Age is a love-letter to the world’s most vital and yet most threatened material. It is the story of how wood has shaped our human experience from the earliest foragers to the modern four poster bed.

In a journey to appreciate how much wood matters – and has done since prehistory – Roland Ennos takes the reader chronologically through four key phases: the impact of wooded habits on the lives of primates; human emergence and the discoveries of fire and woodwork; wood’s role in an environment both pre- and post-industrialisation; and lastly, the possible future of wood in an increasingly technologized world.

In an original and essential investigation, The Wood Age challenges the traditional model of historical development – stone, bronze, iron – and instead guide readers through a revealing and innovative wooded history of the world.