Overview

A Cultural History of Plants in the Nineteenth Century covers the period from 1800 to 1920, a time of astonishing growth in industrialization, urbanization, migration, population growth, colonial possessions, and developments in scientific knowledge. As European modes of civilization and cultivation were exported worldwide, botanical study was revolutionized – through the work of Charles Darwin and many others – and the new science of biology was born, based on cells, nuclei and molecules. As Darwinism took hold, plants came to be seen as a way of thinking about the connectivity of nature and life itself. The six-volume set of the Cultural History of Plants presents the first comprehensive history of the uses and meanings of plants from prehistory to today. The themes covered in each volume are plants as staple foods; plants as luxury foods; trade and exploration; plant technology and science; plants and medicine; plants in culture; plants as natural ornaments; the representation of plants. David Mabberley is Emeritus Fellow at Wadham College, University of Oxford, UK; Emeritus Professor at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands; and Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University, Australia. A Cultural History of Plants in the Nineteenth Century is the fifth volume in the six-volume set, A Cultural History of Plants, also available online as part of Bloomsbury Cultural History, a fully-searchable digital library (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com). General Editors: Annette Giesecke, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and David Mabberley, University of Oxford, UK.

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David J. Mabberley AM, DSc is Emeritus Fellow, Wadham College, University of Oxford, UK. He was, consecutively, Director of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, Seattle, USA; Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK; Executive Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. He held a chair in the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, for twenty-three years and has had visiting posts in the University of Paris; Kuwait University; Universities of Peradeniya and Sri Jawarardenepura, Sri Lanka; University of Sydney; Western Sydney University; and Macquarie University, where he is Adjunct Professor. He has over three hundred publications, ranging over plant ecology and systematics to the history of science and botanical illustration. His most recent books include Botanical Revelation (2019); Mabberley’s Plant-book: A Dictionary of Plants, their Classification and Uses (2017); Painting by Numbers: The life and art of Ferdinand Bauer (2017); and Sir Joseph Banks’ Florilegium (2017).

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