Page 50 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

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Hornblower, S. (1987). Thucydides. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University palaces and temples, which often required timber for
Press. their construction.
Hornblower, S. (1996). A commentary on Thucydides (2nd ed.). Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press. These tendencies were pronounced as long as 4,500
Orwin, C. (1997). The humanity of Thucydides. Princeton, NJ: Princeton years ago. In the riverine valleys of Mesopotamia and the
University Press.
Stadter, P.A. (Ed.). (1973). The speeches in Thucydides. Chapel Hill: Uni- Indus, the Mesopotamians and the Harappans defor-
versity of North Carolina Press. ested their own hills and mountains, and conducted mil-
Stahl, H.-P. (2003). Thucydides: Man’s place in history. Swansea, UK: itary campaigns and trade relations with their neighbors
Classical Press of Wales.
Strassler, R. B. (Ed.). (1998). The landmark Thucydides. New York: to secure a constant wood supply in order to meet their
Simon & Schuster. economic needs.The Egyptians, for example, sought tim-
Thucydides. (1928). Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (C. F.
Smith,Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ber in neighboring areas of Lebanon and parts of the
Thucydides. (1972). Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (R. Syrian coast.
Warner,Trans.). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Timber utilization on a similar scale also was practiced
in other parts of the world. About 2500 BCE in northern
China around the Hwang Ho river basin and Southeast
Asia timber was sought to meet socioeconomic needs.
Timber The use of wood intensified as the urbanization process
progressed globally, with hinterland areas supplying the
ince the Neolithic revolution, timber, with its many wood needs of the more economically transformed civi-
Suses, has been an important commodity in the lizations, empires, and nation-states. During different
development of social life. Over world history from at time periods, certain areas of the globe were the wood
least 3000 BCE onward, available forests have been used yards of other regions. For example, the North American
to meet the needs of an evolving world. Starting from forests and those of the Baltic shores provided the timber
the early urban communities, such as Egypt, Meso- supply for northwestern Europe in the mid-seventeenth
potamia, and Harappa, timber has been a constant fea- century. By the late twentieth century, parts of Africa,
ture of economic life.Timber in its many forms has been Asia, Latin America, northern Europe, and Russia
used as a source of fuel and as a basic material for became the main timber sources.
building construction, shipping, and storage purposes With the advent of agriculture and the urban revolu-
(for example, barrels). Besides those, timber was impor- tion, deforestation has been a constant feature for at least
tant to other aspects of human activity, such as in man- the last 5,000 to 6,000 years. It is as old as the hills.This
ufacturing and for the extraction of other resources such level of deforestation has reached epic proportions by the
as coal and ore (timber beams were used in shoring up end of the twentieth century. The world’s forests have
mine shafts) required in production processes.The level shrunk by nearly half its size from 6 billion hectares
of timber utilization grew in proportion to increases in 8,000 years ago to 3.6 billion hectares presently.Accord-
urbanization, commerce, and population. The increas- ing to the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable
ing size of urbanized communities and growth in pop- Development, forests have virtually disappeared in
ulation often led to pressure to move resources to feed twenty-five countries, eighteen others have lost more
the growing population centers of the ancient world. than 90 percent of their forests, and eleven countries have
Shipping was the normal mode of transportation of lost 90 percent.
these resources. With growing levels of trade, the There is common agreement that deforestation has
increase in maritime shipping resulted in further timber consequences for human communities. Negative out-
consumption. Exuberant lifestyles also developed, lead- comes such as soil erosion and the climatic changes that
ing to the construction of extravagant buildings, such as we are witnessing also occurred in the past.The “modern”