Plants and Empire
Subtitle: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: October 30, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780674014879
Subjects: Botany & plant sciences; History of specific subjects; Plants - General; Life Sciences - Botany; Nature; Nature/Ecology; World - Colonial Studies; Pride-of-Barbados (Plant); Nature / Plants; History; Caribbean Area; Herbal abortifacients; Slavery
Description: "In this account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the "peacock flower" into an abortifacient to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean population."--BOOK JACKET.