The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth

Winner of the 2023 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

"Original and readable." ―Financial Times' Best Environmental Books of 2022

"Superb, inspiring." ―Winner, National Academies of Science Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications

"Illuminating." - Silver Medalist, National Outdoor Book Awards

Longlisted for the American Library Association's 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

In the tradition of Elizabeth Kolbert and Barry Lopez, a powerful, poetic and deeply absorbing account of the "lung" at the top of the world.

For the last fifty years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. Ben Rawlence's The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Norway to Siberia, Alaska to Greenland, Canada to Sweden to meet the scientists, residents and trees confronting huge geological changes. Only the hardest species survive at these latitudes including the ice-loving Dahurian larch of Siberia, the antiseptic Spruce that purifies our atmosphere, the Downy birch conquering Scandinavia, the healing Balsam poplar that Native Americans use as a cure-all and the noble Scots Pine that lives longer when surrounded by its family.

It is a journey of wonder and awe at the incredible creativity and resilience of these species and the mysterious workings of the forest upon which we rely for the air we breathe. Blending reportage with the latest science, The Treeline is a story of what might soon be the last forest left and what that means for the future of all life on earth.

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 02/15/2022
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.1lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781250270238


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2021 pg. 17
Publishers Weekly 10/25/2021
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2021
Library Journal 12/01/2021 pg. 102
Booklist 12/01/2021 pg. 19

About the Author
Ben Rawlence is a former researcher for Human Rights Watch in the horn of Africa. He is the author of City of Thorns and Radio Congo and has written for a wide range of publications, including The Guardian, the London Review of Books, and Prospect. He is the founder and director of Black Mountains College and lives with his family in Wales.