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Start giftingCities and Canopies
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Learn moreNative and imported, sacred and ordinary, culinary and floral, favourites of various kings and commoners over the centuries, trees are the most visible signs of nature in cities, fundamentally shaping their identities. Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth, coming as they do from different parts of the world, brought in by various local and colonial rulers. From the tree planted by Sarojini Naidu at Dehradun's clock tower to those planted by Sher Shah Suri and Jahangir on Grand Trunk Road, trees in India have served, above all, as memory keepers. They are our roots: their trunks our pillars, their bark our texture, and their branches our shade. Trees are nature's own museums.
Drawing on extensive research, Cities and Canopies is a book about both the specific and the general aspects of these gentle life-giving creatures.
Harini Nagendra is professor of sustainability at Azim Premji University, India. She has conducted research on the interaction between people and nature in forests and cities, for over twenty-five years. She writes widely for newspapers, magazines and blogs. Her previous books include Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future and Reforesting Landscapes: Linking Pattern and Process.
Seema Mundoli is a senior lecturer at Azim Premji University, India. She has worked with NGOs involved in conservation, mining, land and forest rights, and education in indigenous communities. Her recent work examines the relationship between people and nature in cities. In addition to research papers and popular articles, she has co-edited State of the Environment 2005: Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Reviews
The book is a luscious romp through the fruit, fun, poetry, folk tales, history and healing properties of the trees we live with. (Live Mint)Those who see timber in trees (and electricity in rivers) should read a book, just out, that can only be described as beautiful. Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli have given us a riveting work-Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities. (Scroll.in)
Cities and Canopies is a fresh, breezy cocktail-one that lifts your spirits yet strikes a note of melancholy, rekindling lost loves and associations, kindling new knowledge and wonder, as it maps the ecological and cultural histories of trees in cities and in our lives, past and present. (Hindustan Times)
The book will take you on a tour of the familiar as well as the unknown. (Week)
The writing is simple and straightforward throughout-and frankly this is a book that ought to be made mandatory reading for all school children and adults. (Open)
With an easy style of writing, and by breaking down scientific facts into relatable bits of information, the authors make the book accessible to a wide audience. (Mongabay)
Cities and Canopies, written by Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli, reveals myriad facts about the trees we've grown up watching and also gives us a painful reminder of their importance, given the tree-starved state of our urban landscape. (Financial Express)
Through a blend of science, history, memory and whimsy, Cities and Canopies draws lucid sketches of the most common trees found in Indian cities and the life-systems they support. (Indian Express)
With thousands of trees being felled in New Delhi, this is a key reminder of what the urban canopy does for the environment and for us. (Nature)
A new book [that] combines scientific rigour with anecdotes and nostalgia to highlight the significance of trees in urban life. (Forbes) Expand reviews
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