Trees are alive; wood is dead. But wood lives again in human hands. As a material, it has no equal in strength, resilience, adaptability and availability. It has been our partner in the cultural evolution from woodland foragers to engineers of our own destiny. Tracing that partnership through tools, devices, construction and artistic expression, Max Adams casts light on our own history as an imaginative, curious, resourceful species. Max looks first at the material properties of various species of wood, and by exploring the implications for human progress of the six basic devices - wedge, inclined plane, screw, lever, wheel & axle and pulley - before investigating the ways in which wood can and has been worked: from the simplest whittling of a stick to splitting, bending, shaping, jointing, and attaching. He explores construction, from the simple bivouacs of bush crafters and nomads to sophisticated wooden buildings like the Chatham sail loft or the Russian stave-built churches. He looks at carving and the decorative arts in wood, from sculpture and memorials to runes; then at the use of wood as a medium for carrying printed illustrations, and for writing.

Humbler aspects of woodworking will not be neglected, the skills that many households, especially in pioneering cultures, had at their disposal almost without thinking: fencing, rustic furniture-making, refurbishment of tools, shelving, bed-making, bodging and door- and window-making.