The Strength Of Oak is a prequel to The Horses Know Trilogy, and is for horse lovers who know there is more to horses than meets the eye.

Botanical, a new series from Reaktion, is the first to integrate horticultural writing with a broader account of the cultural and social impact of plants. Oak, one of the first two books in the series, narrates the biography of the tree that since time immemorial has been a symbol of loyalty, strength, generosity, and renewal. Peter Young explores how the oak, native to the northern hemisphere and found in locations as diverse as the Americas and tropical Asia, has played an important role in state-building, art, folk tales, poems, and songs. Starting with the pagan societies that venerated the oak, Young examines how the tree was used in other religions, revealing how it was believed to be a gateway between worlds in Celtic mythology and later became sacred to Thor in Norse mythology. He follows the oak as it was adopted by many Western European countries as a national symbol, including England, France, and Germany. The United States Congress designated the oak as America’s national tree in 2004, and it is the state tree of Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Georgia. Individual oak trees have also gained historical importance, such as the Charter Oak in Hartford, Connecticut, which became a symbol of American independence. In addition to tracing the history of the tree itself, Young investigates oak as a wood used to make furniture, bridges, wine casks, homes, ships, weapons, and even the electric chair, and he describes how the tree has been used as a food source—its fruit, the acorn, was eaten in ancient Greece, ancient Iberia, and Korea, and it was a traditional food of Native Americans. Packed with information and beautiful illustrations, Oak tells the fascinating tale of this stately, durable member of the natural world.

The degradable nature of high-performance, wood-based materials is an attractive advantage when considering environmental factors such as sustainability, recycling, and energy/resource conservation. The Handbook of Wood Chemistry and Wood Composites provides an excellent guide to the latest concepts and technologies in wood chemistry and bio-based composites. The book analyzes the chemical composition and physical properties of wood cellulose and its response to natural processes of degradation. It describes safe and effective chemical modifications to strengthen wood against biological, chemical, and mechanical degradation without using toxic, leachable, or corrosive chemicals. Expert researchers provide insightful analyses of the types of chemical modifications applied to polymer cell walls in wood, emphasizing the mechanisms of reaction involved and resulting changes in performance properties. These include modifications that increase water repellency, fire retardancy, and resistance to ultraviolet light, heat, moisture, mold, and other biological organisms. The text also explores modifications that increase mechanical strength, such as lumen fill, monomer polymer penetration, and plasticization. The Handbook of Wood Chemistry and Wood Composites concludes with the latest applications, such as adhesives, geotextiles, and sorbents, and future trends in the use of wood-based composites in terms of sustainable agriculture, biodegradability and recycling, and economics. Incorporating over 30 years of teaching experience, the esteemed editor of this handbook is well-attuned to educational demands as well as industry standards and research trends.

Damage in wood is principally the result of fatigue. Fatigue is the process of progressive localised irreversible change in a material, and may culminate in cracks or complete fracture if conditions that initiated or propagated the process persist. Comprehensive understanding of fatigue and fracture in engineered wood components must be founded on a proper understanding of the damage processes. Although wood is the world's most widely used structural material, whether measured by volume consumed or value of finished construction, its behaviour is not well understood even by people who have spent their careers studying it. * What is known about failure processes comes almost entirely from empirical evidence collected for engineering purposes. * Hypotheses about behaviour of wood are based on macroscopic observation of specimens during and following tests. * With only limited resources and the need to obtain practical results quickly, the timber engineering research community has steered away from the scientific approach. * Forestry practices are changing and are known to influence characteristics of wood cells therefore there is a need to periodically reassess the mechanical properties of visually graded lumber the blackbox approach. Fatigue and Fracture of Wood examines the above issues from a scientific point of view by drawing on the authors' own research as well as previously published material. Unlike the empirical research, the book begins by examining growth of wood. It briefly examines its structure in relation to how trees grow, before assessing the fatigue and fracture of wood and discussing the scientific methods of modelling fatigue. * Covers from macro to micro behaviour of wood * Presents direct evidence of how wood fractures using Scanning Electron Microscopy * The first book to present a physically correct model for fracture in wood * Provides experimental proof of so-called memory in wood (i.e. dependence of fatigue behaviour on the loading sequence) * Givse practical illustrations of how theories and models can be applied in practice An essential resource for wood scientists/engineers, timber-engineering practitioners, and graduate students studying wood and solid mechanics.