 The end of the Laurentian Forest 
In the nineteenth century, while the first globalization was in full swing, voices were raised to denounce the unsustainable exploitation of the forest, both in Europe and America. Warnings of an exhaustion of timber resources raised the specter of an imminent “timber famine”, and led the British press to pit supporters of forest protection against those who promoted the liberalization of international trade. To understand the nature of the debate and explain the differences of opinions on the depletion of forest resources, this article confronts the protagonists’ arguments with the material conditions of timber trade. This article proposes a study of forest geography during the first globalization to understand how discourses on the exhaustion of forest resources and the timber famine—which were originally encamped in national contexts—fit into the transitioning global landscape of international timber trade.