| Book Review | Environmental History, 8.1

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 8.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change since 1849. By George E. Gruell. Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press, 2001. xv + 238 pp. Illustrations, plates, glossary, bibliography, index. Paper $20.00.

In Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests, George E. Gruell uses rephotography to demonstrate how more than a century of fire suppression has led to the deterioration of forests throughout the Sierra Nevada. He presents eighty-four sets of paired photographs, one of each set taken before 1920 (but ranging as far back as 1849), the other taken from the same location during the early 1990s. Gruell mixes photographic evidence of forest composition and density with modern field observations to document drastic transformations in mountain landscapes. Gruell concludes that Sierra Nevada forests have grown more dense and the canopy more complete and less healthy. This increase in density can be misleading. "It is hard to shake the intuitive sense that when it comes to forest, denser is better," Gruell explains. "Our purpose here is to educate our instincts, discovering what is healthier for the ecosystem as a whole" (p.1). Today's forests are more prone to disease, insect infestation, and fires of catastrophic intensity than those photographed by Gruell's predecessors. . . .

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