A new book from the University of Georgia Press, The American Chestnut, An Environmental History by Donald Edward Davis is seen as the most comprehensive treatment of the history of the American Chestnut written to date as it looks at forest ecology, anthropological significance as well as challenging claims of those looking to genetic engineering as a dubious method of reestablishing the dominance of the tree in our future forest landscape.
“Certainly there is no better example of ‘the law of unintended consequences’ than the introduction of chestnut blight into North America. This principle should certainly cause those involved in the chestnut restoration arms race to consider the consequences of prematurely releasing GE trees into the wild.”
About the author: Donald Edward Davis is an independent scholar, author, and former Fulbright fellow. He has authored or edited seven books, including Southern United States: An Environmental History. His second book, Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians, won the prestigious Philip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award. Davis was also the founding member of the Georgia Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, serving as its president from 2005 to 2006. He is currently employed by the Harvard Forest as a part-time research scholar and lives in Washington, D.C.