Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire

Stephen Pyne's Fire in America is a comprehensive review of the role of fire in the cultural and economic development of the United States. Pyne's storytelling is a little dry and the chapters are not always well-structured, but Pyne covers a lot of ground widely and intelligently — and does it in a way that refreshingly avoids any facile moral judgments on the various historical actors.