I found Trees in Paradise too detailed for popular history, and likely too scattershot in subject to interest academic scholars. Farmer's approach (thematically grouping around groups of trees that characterize the California landscape and history) is sound. But do we really need to cover every freeze that threatened citrus trees in the last 150 years? Similarly, the section on eucalypts seemed interminable. A more heavy-handed editor might have improved this mightily. ( )

Equally mocking of liberal pretensions and conservative indifference to the environment, Farmer traces the history of California via trees—eucalyptus, palm, oranges, redwoods. They’re interesting stories, and some of the sharpest moments come when people import the language of “immigration” to defend or attack certain trees. As he points out, though, the great exclusionist racists of the 19th and 20th centuries were often the most excited to import trees they thought would be good for the economy, so the analogy was never coherent. ( )