Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World [Hardcover]

Atlantic history is turning into quite the hot topic these days in various academic circles. When I use the phrase "Atlantic history," I'm not referring to mere narratives dealing with navies or trading vessels, but rather the sweeping arc of political, economic, cultural, and social dynamics of the nations and continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It is a topic that also deals with slavery, piracy, colonialism, revolution, and the rise of capitalism. Histories in this field tend to look at events spanning three or four centuries, usually the 1600s to the 1900s but often greater swaths of time, and how these events arose from the complex interactions of various peoples. I've read quite a few books in this challenging field, from Marcus Rediker's "The Many-Headed Hydra" to Barry Unsworth's fictional novel "Sacred Hunger" to a series of essays from Philip D. Curtin. All three were enlightening in particular ways, but all three couldn't possibly hope to cover every aspect of such an enormous topic. Well, Rediker comes close. But plenty of work still exists for the keen-eyed historian. Enter Londa Schiebinger and her "Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World." Plants, it seems, moved about as much as people during this time frame.

Who collected plants in the New World and took them back to Europe? Were there specific plants sought by European scientists and, if so, which ones and why? These are only a couple of the many questions the author seeks to answer in this book. According to Schiebinger, to find the answers to these vexing questions involves studying the state of botanical study in the 17th and 18th centuries, the role women played in collecting plants and using the medicine distilled from them, the personalities behind the cataloguing of plants, and the various methods used to disseminate knowledge about the medicinal uses of the plants in question. The book explains that the European nation states considered plants a valuable commodity, so much so that kings and princes underwrote the creation of special botanical gardens employing scientists and dozens of men willing to go out into the field to collect specimens. Plants could provide cures for various afflictions or dyes for clothing that could translate into millions in profit for a particular nation. Moreover, the acquisition of material meant fame and fortune for the botanists involved in their collection. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern scientific classification, pops up in these pages more than once. So do a few women who went out into the field--primarily a man's domain--to write their own treatises on native flora and fauna.

Schiebinger mentions many useful plants, but focuses on one in particular to show how empire building and imperialism manifested itself in such an innocuous activity as botany. The Peacock flower, which grew widely in the Caribbean and was used by local women as a way to end unwanted pregnancies, caught the eye of European collectors quite early. These men even knew what the plant's function was. So were does empire enter the picture? First, Schiebinger argues that doctors and botanists attempted to hide the true use of the plant back home--a process of purposefully obscuring scientific data the author calls agnotology--so that European women would not use the plant to terminate pregnancies. At the same time, doctors and researchers never hesitated to use this plant and other abortifacients in experiments on slaves in the New World. Thus knowledge, or the control of knowledge by male scientists, was used to regulate female reproduction and assert a form of dominance over the native populations in the Caribbean. Moreover, Schiebinger asserts that slaves and conquered populations used the Peacock flower because they didn't want their children to live in bondage. Pretty heavy stuff, wouldn't you say?

The research in the book is impeccable. The author consulted medical books, botanical collections, memoirs, pharmaceutical pamphlets and catalogues, letters, and other pertinent materials to construct a detailed examination of the importance of botany in European expansion and conquest. "Plants and Empire" is at its strongest when arguing that herbal medicines were enormously important to European economic trade, more important than we would think. The book is at its weakest when trying to convince the reader that scientists tried to hide the knowledge of abortifacients from European females. Yes, it does appear that the particular trait of the Peacock flower didn't pop up all over the place, but it did appear in a few journals and reports. Besides, the Europeans had access to a large number of effective abortifacients that worked just as well, if not better, than the Peacock flower. Some of these medicines were still available well into the 20th century. Moreover, the argument that the disappearance of midwives, with their vast knowledge of such "immoral" materials, would result in a loss of this knowledge amongst the general populace seems unlikely. Knowledge, especially "forbidden" knowledge, is surprisingly resistant to any attempts at restriction.

I enjoyed reading Schiebinger's book despite these problems. She's quite a proficient writer, capable of guiding the reader through the often daunting numbers of Latin plant names with the greatest of ease. Too--and I probably shouldn't say this about an academic whose specialty includes gender studies--she's quite attractive if the photograph on the flap is any indication. I could easily see myself sitting in the front row of her class with endearing messages written on my eyelids. Seriously, students of Atlantic history and others who love metahistory would do well to check out this book. It is a fine contribution to the field.