Botanica: Untold Histories of Plants, People, and Empire

A much-needed new history of American plants: a decolonized, thorough, and honest account of the appropriation of American fauna that recognizes the multiplicity of empire and tells overlooked stories.

Gardeners love to celebrate their plants' exotic origins and triumphant discoverers, but it is remarkable how little books of plant history have changed since Victorian times. The people who collected our plants from afar are invariably described as self-sacrificing explorers of remote, inhosp...