Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa

For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants in African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured, from stolen recipes and toxic tonics to unfulfilled promises of laboratory equipment and usurped personal patents. In Bitter Roots, Abena Dove Osseo—Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to i...