American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree

This book by Susan Freinkel is published by the University of California Press. It was published in 2007.

Susan Freinkel writes about the intersection of science, culture and the environment. Raised in Evanston, IL, she studied history at Wesleyan University, and journalism at Columbia University. After working several years as a daily reporter for the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, she moved to San Francisco to cover legal affairs and the business of law for The Recorder newspaper and American Lawyer magazine. She got interested in science when she started writing about health and medicine as a staff writer for Health magazine. Now a free-lancer, her work has appeared in national publications including the New York Times, Discover, Smithsonian and Reader’s Digest. Her interests run wide: she’s covered stories ranging from mad cow disease to a vitamin treatment for bipolar disorder, from adoption to the case for zoos to the quest to develop a blue rose. A story about a disease plaguing California oak trees led to her first book, American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. It won a 2008 National Outdoor Book Award. After immersing herself in the natural world for that book, she turned her attention to the unnatural world for her next book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.

The American chestnut was one of America’s most common, valued, and beloved trees―a “perfect tree” that ruled the forests from Georgia to Maine. But in the early twentieth century, an exotic plague swept through the chestnut forests with the force of a wildfire. Within forty years, the blight had killed close to four billion trees and left the species teetering on the brink of extinction. It was one of the worst ecological blows to North America since the Ice Age―and one most experts considered beyond repair. In American Chestnut, Susan Freinkel tells the dramatic story of the stubborn optimists who refused to let this cultural icon go. In a compelling weave of history, science, and personal observation, she relates their quest to save the tree through methods that ranged from classical plant breeding to cutting-edge gene technology. But the heart of her story is the cast of unconventional characters who have fought for the tree for a century, undeterred by setbacks or skeptics, and fueled by their dreams of restored forests and their powerful affinity for a fellow species.

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520259942/american-chestnut