Kieko Matteson

In 17th and 18th century Europe, wood was the dominant source of energy and the essential ingredient of buildings, tools, and transport on land and sea. To ensure a steady supply of timber and fuel for their military and industrial ambitions, monarchs subjected forests to ever-mounting forms of surveillance and control. Focusing on the example of France, from the narrowly timber-focused interests of the Forest Ordinance of 1669 to the punitive and exclusionary Code Forestier of 1827, Kieko Matteson will explore the ways that state economic and strategic objectives shaped the models and methods of French forestry for centuries, to the consternation and anger of rural communities who found themselves cut off from the woods where they lived and upon which they relied.

Speaker Biography

Kieko Matteson – Associate Professor and Department Chair, Department of History, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

Born and raised in Vermont, Kieko Matteson is a forest historian of early modern and modern France. Her research explores the intersections between environmental policy, state power, and sociopolitical change in 18th and 19th century France. Her first book, Forests in Revolutionary France: Conservation, Community, and Conflict 1669-1848, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. A graduate of Smith College (A.B.) and Yale University (M.A., Ph.D.), she is currently Chair of the Department of History at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.

Recommended Reading

Matteson, K. (2015). Introduction. Forests in Revolutionary France: Conservation, Community, and Conflict (pp. 1–14). Cambridge University Press.