But insights regarding market cycles, trading practices, cost-benefit approximations, and other activities add an important dimension to the research. Totman repeatedly announces that deforestation must be analyzed on the local scale. Totman compares forest use in specific cities to extraction from remote areas to illustrate this point. Totman draws heavily on numerous local primary sources, and issue repeated disclaimers about source inadequacies. This might be an endemic problem for ancient forest history.
Quantitative data can only go so far, but qualitative reports are even more problematic.
The Green Archipelago leaves some questions unanswered, such as population and food relationships and scientific issues. However, it provides an insightful analysis of an interesting topic. The division of Japanese forest history into exploitation and regeneration phases is useful for this analysis, and potentially valuable in others. I will conclude with a personal opinion regarding the future of environmental history. This book illustrates a prevailing deemphasis upon contemporary science, particularly theoretical studies.