Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.It towers over us and yet fades into background. Its lifespan outstrips ours, and yet its wisdom remains inaccessible, treasured up within its heartwood. It serves us in many ways-as keel, lodgepole, and execution site-and yet to become human, we had to come down from its branches. A model for history and a matrix for the malevolent, the tree occupies great swathes of cultural territory; despite its stationary habit, it does a great deal of meaning-making work in human worlds. A study of the tree's many natures, this book offers a branching meditation on the forms, uses, and alliances of the arborescent.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.