"Karl Appuhn’s study of Venetian efforts to control and manage their forests is a fascinating case study in the problems and politics of resource management. By carefully tracing the evolution of Venice’s attempts to control, harvest, and replenish its forests, Appuhn reconstructs a world of experts, bureaucrats, shipbuilders, and rural villagers who all recognized how vital a commodity trees were to an early modern state. An excellent and stimulating contribution to early environmental history."