"Stephen Pyne's "Vestal Fire" is an astounding tour de force, even by this writer's demandingly high standards: nothing less than a total history of the western conception, practice and response to fire through (at least) three millennia. " -Simon Schama, author of "Landscape and Memory". "This is environmental history at its best - a subtle but provocative new blend of the human and the natural, of culture and nature, of society and environment ...and a rattling good story." - Michael Williams, Oxford University ""Vestal Fire" is a magisterially comprehensive environmental history of fire in Europe and most of the rest of the world. It is a splendidly written capstone of Stephen Pyne's "Cycle of Fire", a work of more than twenty years' duration." -William H. Goetzmann, author of "Exploration and Empire". Stephen J. Pyne, a noted environmental historian, is a professor in the Biology and Society Program at Arizona State University. Among his many books are the five volumes comprising the "Cycle of Fire", of which "Vestal Fire" is the most recent.