Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World

Abstract

* 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

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 311 citations exist upstream.