Former Dalton State College Professor Donald E. Davis’s new book, The American Chestnut: An Environmental History, has been published by the University of Georgia Press. In conducting research for my own book, I constantly came across references to chestnuts in the primary sources. Appalachian people used the wood as a versatile building material, its nuts as a food for humans and livestock and as an important tradeable commodity. Its demise in the early twentieth century due to blight was one of the most destructive and tragic ecological events mountain people had ever experienced. I attended a book talk Davis gave last month at Dalton State, and it was a delight to finally see the final product of some 20 years of research. The American Chestnut is sure to become the standard environmental history of one of the most useful tree species in American history.
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