Foreword: Figuring things out / Béatrice Chassé -- Introduction: What is an oak? -- Flowers and acorns: populations arise and migrate -- Variation: populations evolve -- Species and their hybrids -- Origins: fagaceae -- Radiation: quercus -- "Pharaoh's Dance": the oak genome -- Oak communities -- Epilogue: The future of oaks

"Oaks are familiar to almost everyone, and beloved. They are embedded in our mythology, and sculpted into cathedral walls. They have fed us, housed us, provided wood for our ships and wine barrels and homes and halls, planked our roads, and kept us warm. It is hard to imagine a more important tree genus than oaks to the culture and ecology of the Northern Hemisphere. There has been a great deal written about oaks for popular audiences, but no book has focused on oaks' evolutionary history. In this engrossing book, Andrew L. Hipp, an expert on plant ecology and evolution, shows how oaks themselves are part of the Tree of Life, connecting all organisms that have ever lived on Earth. Considering oaks' lineage from their beginnings some 120 million years ago to today, he investigates how their evolution is imprinted on our world"--