Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Garden

This book offers an invaluable analysis of the ways in which plants and knowledge about them have been employed towards the expansion of the British empire. Amateur and later professional botanists associated with the Kew Botanical Gardens made relocating plants from one continent to the next possible through innovation and enhanced understanding of the plants' systems, taxonomy and ecology. This knowledge and related inventions for transporting plants made it possible for the British to grow rubber in SE Asia, tea in Ceylon, coffee in Latin America, sugar in Brazil, etc. This movement of plants around the world were further aided by the valuable discovery of quinine for curing fevers and malaria which meant that the cinchona tree from Peru and Bolivia facilitated the penetration of colonial empire further into the African and Asian continents. This book is carefully researched and beautifully narrated.

I stumbled across this book while doing research for a master's thesis that dealt with, of all things, the history of paleontology and the Peking man digs in China. I found it eye-opening and fascinating. Through showing the history of the British Royal Botanical Gardens, the author manages to teach a great deal about the rise of Europe and the West, Colonialism, science, agriculture and economic production throughout the British empire, and the world at large, up to modern times. Of special interest to me was the intertwining of science and economic exploitation in colonialized nations of the time. I consider this book remarkable in that it taught me more than if I had read five similar books.

This is an excellent book, very easy to read and covering the colonial economic botany (rubber, quinin, sisal) in a true apealing way.

Important to read because of its take on slavery and plants.

Perfect present for my nephew