Planting the world : Joseph Banks and his collectors : an adventurous history of botany / Jordan Goodman

Author: Goodman, Jordan
Published: London : William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2020.
Copyright Date: ©2020
Physical Description: xxxix, 520 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : color illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

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Contents

Machine generated contents note: pt. I TO EVERY CORNER OF THE EARTH -- Preface -- 1. 1772: Masson Roams the Atlantic -- 2. 1779: Return to Botany Bay by Way of Southwest Africa -- 3. 1780: The First Circumnavigation of Archibald Menzies -- 4. 1782: The Brothers Duncan in Canton -- 5. 1786: The Madras Naturalists and Dreams of Oaxaca -- pt. II FLOATING GARDENS AND THE COTTON CLUB -- Preface -- 6. 1786: The First and Second Fleet -- 7. 1787: Anthony Pantaleon Hove in Gujarat -- 8. 1787: Mr Nelson's Unfortunate Bounty Voyage -- 9. 1790: The Second Circumnavigation of Archibald Menzies -- 10. 1791: The Gardeners of the Providence -- pt. III AN EMBASSY, A FREE TOWN AND A PLANT EXCHANGE -- Preface -- 11. 1791: `An Intertropical Abode': Afzelius in Sierra Leone -- 12. i792: Macartney, Staunton and the China Embassy -- 13. 1793: The Accidental Naturalist in Qianlong's Empire -- 14. 1794: To Calcutta and Back -- pt. IV FIFTH QUARTER OF THE WORLD -- Preface -- 15. 1795: The Farrier's Son Finds Banks -- 16. 1800: Caley and Moowattin -- 17. 1800: Not Since the Endeavour -- 18. 1801: Australia Circumnavigated and Beyond -- pt. V BOTANICAL DIPLOMACY AND THE TROPICS -- Preface -- 19. 1803: William Kerr in Canton -- 20. 1812: And Still Not First-Hand -- 21. 1814: Accidentally in Brazil with Bowie and Cunningham -- 22. 1815: Lockhart Survives the Congo.

Summary

Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the eighteenth century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe's industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion. Joseph Banks was the dynamo for this momentous change. As botanist for James Cook's great voyage to the South Pacific on the Endeavour, Banks collected plants on a vast scale, armed with the vision - as a child of the Enlightenment - that to travel physically was to advance intellectually. His thinking was as intrepid as Cook's seafaring: he commissioned radically influential and physically daring expeditions such as those of Francis Masson to the Cape Colony, George Staunton to China, George Caley to Australia, William Bligh to Tahiti and Jamaica, among many others. Jordan Goodman's epic history follows these high seas adventurers and their influence in Europe, as well as taking us back to the early years of Kew Gardens, which Banks developed devotedly across the course of his life, transforming it into one of the world's largest and most diverse botanical gardens. In a rip-roaring global expedition, based on original sources in many languages, Goodman gives a momentous history of how the discoveries made by Banks and his collectors advanced scientific understanding around the world.

Subject(s)

Genre(s)

History

ISBN

9780007578832 (hardcover)
0007578830 (hardcover)
9780007578856 (trade paperback)
0007578857 (trade paperback)

Bibliography Note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 463-501) and index.

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