Outstanding Plants That Changed Our Life

The development of humanity is unimaginable without plants: for thousands of years they have provided us with food, shelter, clothing, means of transportation, and medicine. Helen and William Bynum — historians of science and medicine, as well as passionate gardeners — trace in this book the history of human interaction with 80 key plants over the past 12,000 years. They start with the first cultivated grains that laid the foundations for the development of civilizations (wheat, rice, corn), devote the next section to plants that formed our material world — ships, houses, clothing, furniture (oak, flax, cotton), and then move on to cash crops that radically affected the global economy, colonialism, and post-colonialism, as well as our familiar consumption patterns (tea, coffee, sugar cane). From pumpkin and beans that came from America to African sorghum and yams, from Brazilian rubber to Chinese bamboo — the geographical scope of the book is monumental. This stunning edition, illustrated with unique old drawings, engravings, lithographs, and paintings from the collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, will be a source of new knowledge and inspiration for anyone interested in history, anthropology, and cultural studies, as well as botany, and for anyone who cares about the beauty and diversity of the plant kingdom.