The Treeline

The Treeline

The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth

Summary

A ground-breaking and beautifully written investigation into the Arctic Treeline with an urgent environmental message.

'Evocative, wise and unflinching' Jay Griffiths, author of Wild

The Arctic treeline is the frontline of climate change, where the trees have been creeping towards the pole for fifty years already.

Scientists are only just beginning to understand the astonishing significance of these northern forests for all life on Earth. At the treeline, Rawlence witnesses the accelerating impact of climate change and the devastating legacies of colonialism and capitalism. But he also finds reasons for hope. Humans are creatures of the forest; we have always evolved with trees and The Treeline asks us where our co-evolution might take us next.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE

'A moving, thoughtful, deeply reported elegy for our vanishing world and a map of the one to come' Nathaniel Rich, author of Losing Earth

'A lyrical and passionate book... The Treeline is a sobering, powerful account of how trees might just save the world, as long as we are sensible enough to let them' Mail on Sunday

'Ben Rawlence circumnavigates the very top of the globe - returning with a warning, in this enthralling and wonderfully written book' Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees

Reviews

  • This original and readable book takes readers to a part of the world undergoing radical but little-understood change.
    Financial Times, *Books of the Year*

About the author

Ben Rawlence

Ben Rawlence is the author of City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp and Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War. Rawlence has written for the Guardian, London Review of Books, New York Times, New York Times Book Review, New Yorker and many other publications. He lives in Wales and is the founder and director of Black Mountains College, an institution dedicated to preparing people for the changes to come.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more