The passionate response of the British public to the Newbury Bypass is a revealing measure of how strongly people feel about trees and the environment.

List of Figures, List of Tables, Preface, 1. Trees, from Symbols of Life and Regeneration to Political Artefacts, Part I. Why Trees Are Good to Think, 2. Why Trees, Too, Are Good to Think With: Towards an Anthropology of the Meaning of Life, 3. Palms and the Prototypicality of Trees: Some Questions Concerning Assumptions in the Comparative Study of Categories and Labels, 4. Trees of Knowledge of Self and Other in Culture: On Models for the Moral Imagination, Part II: Trees, Human Life and the Continuity of Communities, 5. Trees and People: Some Vital Links. Tree Products and Other Agents in the Life Cycle of the Ankave-Anga of Papua New Guinea, 6. The Coconut, the Body and the Human Being. Metaphors of Life and Growth in Nusa Penida and Bali, 7. 'May Blessings Come, May Mischiefs Go!' Living Kinds as Agents of Transitions and Transformation in an Eastern Indonesian Setting, 8. 'The Grove is Our Temple'. Contested Representations of Kaavu in Kerala, South India, 9. The Second Life of Trees: Family Forestry in Upland Japan, Part III: Woods, Forests and Politics, 10. Grassroots Campaigning for the World's Forests, 11. Northwest Coast Trees: From Metaphors in Culture to Symbols for Culture, 12. Representatives of the Past: Trees in Historical Dispute and Socialised Ecology in the Forest Zone of the Republic of Guinea, West Africa, 13. Modern Forestry: Trees and Development Spaces in South-west Bengal, India, Postface, 14. Postface: The Life of Trees, Notes on Contributors, Index