Plants and Empire

Londa Schiebinger is John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science and Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University.

Plants and Empire shows how botany and slavery, cruelty and courage, curiosity and capitalism all converged on one beautiful "peacock flower"--the ornament of European gardens, a sought-after medicament, and an abortifacient for slave women who refused to bear children into inhuman bondage. This book is rich in information and insights about how plants have transformed our world; it is above all rich in stories about the people who hunted and used them, splendidly told.

• * Acknowledgments * Introduction *"The Base for All Economics" * Plan of the Book *1. Voyaging Out * Botanistes Voyageurs * Maria Sibylla Merian * Biopirates * Who Owns Nature? * Voyaging Botanical Assistants * Creole Naturalists and Long-Term Residents * Armchair Botanists * The Search for the Amazons * Heroic Narratives *2. Bioprospecting * Drug Prospecting in the West Indies * Biocontact Zones * Secrets and Monopolies * Drug Prospecting at Home * Brokers of International Knowledge *3. Exotic Abortifacients * Merian's Peacock Flower * Abortion in Europe * Abortion in the West Indies: The Colonial Sexual Economy * Abortion and the Slave Trade *4. The Fate of the Peacock Flower in Europe * Animal Testing * Self Experimentation * Human Subjects * Testing for Sexual Difference * The Complications of Race * Abortifacients *5. Linguistic Imperialism * Empire and Naming the Kingdoms of Nature * Naming Conundrums * Exceptions: Quassia and Cinchona * Alternative Naming Practices * Conclusion: Agnotology * Notes * Bibliography * Index