The Victorians: A Botanical Perspective, Volume 1

About this book

The Victorians: A Botanical Perspective, Volume 1 offers a unique re-evaluation of the Victorian Age and presents a new historiography based on plants. It examines the use of gutta-percha in the development of electrical measurements; provides a detailed history of cocoa and the forced labour in the São Tomé and Principe Islands; explores the beauty, imagination, and order of William and May Morris' flowers; uncovers the world of Charles Darwin and the Victorian Botany Culture; highlights the crucial role of the Wardian Case in the global transport of plants; reveals the connection between Mid-Victorian Botany and Microscopy; offers glimpses of the colonial collections at the 1862 London Exhibition; explains how botany was connected with the development of photography; evokes the desire for a return to Nature and a simple life; and, finally, takes us on a journey through the history of violets.

Contents

- Insulation for an Empire: Gutta-Percha and the Development of Electrical Measurement in Victorian Britain
- Cocoa, Cadbury and Forced Labour in Sao Tome and Principe, West Africa
- 'Beauty, imagination and order'; the Flowers of William and May Morris
- Charles Darwin, Victorian Botany, and Victorian Culture
- Moving Plants in the Victorian Era: Glass, Transplants and the Wardian Case
- Circulation and Civility: Mid-Victorian botany and microscopical method
- Glimpses of the Colonial Collections at the 1862 London Exhibition: The case of the Angolan 'Objects' at the Portuguese section
- Developing Botany
- Photography During the Victorian Era
- The Victorian Return to Nature and the Simple Life
- Violets and Victorians

Customer Reviews

Biography

Luís Manuel Mendonça de Carvalho is a biologist with an MSc. in Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants (Lisbon University) and a PhD in Systematics and Morphology (Coimbra University), with a thesis on Ethnobotany. He is a former visiting Scholar at Harvard University and is now a Coordinator Professor at Beja Polytechnic University (Portugal). He is the founder and director of the Beja Botanical Museum and a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History (Lisbon Nova University) and the Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development (Evora University). He holds the UNESCO Chair in Ethnobotany and the Safeguard of Plant-Based Heritage and, in 2003, received the Ford Motor Company Award and represented Portugal in the Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation (UNESCO). He writes and lectures on the history of botany, especially on economic botany and ethnobotany.