The Depletion Myth

Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »

Sherry Olson traces the timber conversation issue over the full term of evolution of forestry consciousness in America, giving new prominence to the role of industrial consumers in adjusting the use pattern of a major resource. In its preoccupation with growing wood the Forest Service underestimated the ability of consumers to reduce their use of timber. Olson attributes this mistake to confusion of the economic facts of supply and demand with physical facts of production and consumption. This distinction, she believes, could be applied with profit to current problems of resource management.