Warren Dean chronicles the chaotic path to what could be one of the greatest natural disasters of modern times: the disappearance of the Atlantic Forest. A quarter the size of the Amazon Forest, and the most densely populated region in Brazil, the Atlantic Forest is now the most endangered in the world. It contains a great diversity of life forms, some of them found nowhere else, as well as the country's largest cities, plantations, mines, and industries. Continual clearing is ravaging most of the forested remnants.

Dean opens his story with the hunter-gatherers of twelve thousand years ago and takes it up to the 1990s—through the invasion of Europeans in the sixteenth century; the ensuing devastation wrought by such developments as gold and diamond mining, slash-and-burn farming, coffee planting, and industrialization; and the desperate battles between conservationists and developers in the late twentieth century.

Based on a great range of documentary and scientific resources,With Broadax and Firebrand is an enormously ambitious book. More than a history of a tropical forest, or of the relationship between forest and humans, it is also a history of Brazil told from an environmental perspective. Dean writes passionately and movingly, in the fierce hope that the story of the Atlantic Forest will serve as a warning of the terrible costs of destroying its great neighbor to the west, the Amazon Forest.

Warren Dean (1932-1994) was Professor of History at New York University. His books includeThe Industrialization of Sao Paulo (1969), Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System (1976), and The Struggle for Rubber in Brazil (1987). Stuart B. Schwartz is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.

"A pioneer in environmental history with several major books to his credit, Dean has written a magnificent and disturbing account of the destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic forests, which once covered a million square kilometers and have been reduced over several centuries to small patches scarred by logging, pollution, and scavenging. . . . Finely written, profoundly thoughtful, never sentimental, and exhaustively documented, the book concludes with a sense of alarm and foreboding."—Foreign Affairs

"Dean has prepared an outstanding, scientifically researched, historical account of human intrusions into the Brazilian Atlantic forest, the most endangered in the world. . . . [He] examines the social and cultural factors that lead to the wanton waste and degradation of this once lush and diverse forest. He clearly describes the characteristics of the forest that made it ripe for exploitation as well as the inadequate attempts at conservation."—Choice

"A renowned historian of Brazil, Warren Dean turned his attention to a daunting historical problem in Latin America that has never received such focused scholarly attention. . . . This brilliant scholar . . . has produced a passionate, provocative, and insightful book about humankind's relationship with nature in southeastern Brazil."—Annal of the Association of American Geographers

"A pathbreaking work of environmental history, and . . . a revisionist approach to 500 years of Brazilian history. And if widely read and disseminated, it might even help save the remaining patches of the Brazilian Atlantic forest."—American Historical Review

"A tour de force. It is Dean's most sweeping work, as humane as his earlier writing and as cogent. . . . To be read and debated not only by specialists on Brazil but by historians in all fields. "—H–LATAM Review

"Dean contrasts northern forests, typically composed of a dozen or fewer species and, once cut, capable of restoring themselves after 100 years or so, with South American rain forests, where the multitude of species and the thin soil may make reestablishment impossible."—Washington Post Book World

"Dean provides the most comprehensive English version of man’s impact on the Atlantic Forest yet written. . . . [His] attempt to assess the total impact of development on a natural ecosystem is the greatest contribution of this book. . . . A detailed and scholarly environmental history of the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil that should be read by all those interested in development or in the conservation of tropical forests. The lessons to be learned from the destruction of the Atlantic forest can be applied to the Amazon or, for that matter to any tropical part of the world."—Economic Botany

"A consummate example of what can be accomplished with such a commitment . . . [it] will stand as a model for further studies of Latin American environmental history."—The Americas

"A beautifully written, passionate, and disturbing indictment, nothing less than the history of Brazil as told from the perspective of a great forest under assault, decline, and dissolution."—Environmental History Review

"A lucid account of the history of the Atlantic Forest."—Environment and Ecology (India)

"[The author] masterfully weaves together sober science, vivid history, and human drama in cataloguing the 500-year degradation and demise of the Brazilian Atlantic forest on the eastern coast of South America."—Audubon Naturalist

"An unprecedented historical account of the destruction of Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a required reading for those committed to its preservation, written with genuine love and knowledge."—José Roberto Borges, Brazil Program Director, Rainforest Action Network

"After reading this volume, no one could fail to realize the uniqueness and importance of these coastal forests, which have played such a fascinating role in the history of Brazil."—Ghillean T. Prance, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

1996 Herbert Eugene Bolton Prize, The Latin American Studies Association
George Perkins Marsh Prize, The American Society for Environmental History
Honorable mention in the 1997 Bryce Wood Book Award, The Latin American Studies Association