I emailed the group last year about a new seminar course I am teaching
this spring called "Plants That Changed The World". Its not a botany
course, but rather one that discusses the myriad of different ways that
plants have affected our world including as fuel, food, medicine, wood
for construction & art, and global environmental change (absorbing CO2,
etc.).
One of the books I intended to use is "Seeds of Change" by Henry
Hobhouse (1986), but just found out that it is no longer in print!!
This book had discussed how 5 plants (Cotton, Quinine, Tea, Sugar Cane,
and Potato) have altered the course of human history. It was a great
book, but don't want to have to scrounge 15 copies every year through
Amazon.com.
Does anyone know of any other books out there (that are well documented
and fairly scholarly) on how plants have impacted our history??
I know about two books, "Seeds of Change" by Viola and Margolis (1991),
and "Green Inheritance" by Huxley (1984) which are nice, but not very
in-depth.
Thanks for names of any favorite books like this that you might have!
Dave Robinson, Chair
Biology Department
Bellarmine University
2001 Newburg Road
Louisville, KY 40205
502-452-8197
