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Bibliographic Record Display

• Title:What have plants ever done for us? : Western civilization in fifty plants / Stephen Harris.
  
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• Author/Creator:Harris, Stephen, 1966- author.
  
• Published/Created:Oxford : Bodleian Library, 2015.
  

• Holdings

  Holdings Record Display

  • Location:WOODWARD LIBRARY stacksWhere is this?
    
  • Call Number: SB107.5 .H37 2015
    
  • Number of Items:1
    
  • Status:Available
    

   
• Library of Congress Subjects:Botany, Economic--History.
  Plants, Useful--History.
  Plants and civilization.
  
• Medical Subjects: Plants
  
• Description:264 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
  
• Summary:When did the British Government become the world's largest drugs pusher? What tree is frequently used to treat cancer? Which everyday condiment is the most widely traded spice on the planet? Plants are an indispensable part of our everyday life. From the coffee bush and grass for cattle which give us milk for our cappuccinos to the rubber tree which produces tyres for our cars, our lives are inextricably linked to the world of plants. Taking us on a chronological journey, Stephen Harris identifies fifty plants that have been key to the development of the Western world, discussing trade, politics, medicine, travel and chemistry along the way. Plants have provided paper and ink, chemicals that could kill or cure, vital sustenance and stimulants. Some, such as barley, have been staples from earliest times; others, such as oil palm, are newcomers to Western industry. Moreover, with time, uses change: beets, which have been used variously as a treatment for leprosy, source of sugar and animal feed, are now showing potential as biofuels. What may the future hold for mandrake or woad? We remain dependent on plants for our food, our fuel and our medicines. Their effects on our lives, as the stories in this wide-ranging and engaging book demonstrate, continue to be profound, and often unpredictable.
  
• Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
  
• ISBN:9781851244478 (hbk.)
  1851244476 (hbk.)
  
• Contents:Machine generated contents note: Plants
  Barley
  Mandrake
  Beets
  Opium poppy
  Brassicas
  Cannabis
  Bread wheat
  Broad bean
  Alliums
  Pea
  Olive
  Grape
  Papyrus
  Yew
  Rose
  Pines
  Reeds
  Oak
  Apple
  Pepper
  Carrot
  Woad
  Citrus
  Nutmeg
  White mulberry
  Tobacco
  Tulip
  Chilli
  Quinine
  Cocoa
  Potato
  Tomato
  Coffee
  Maize
  Pineapple
  Smooth meadow grass
  Lycopods
  Cotton
  Sugar cane
  Coconut
  Rice
  Tea
  Ragwort
  Banana
  Rubber
  Sunflower
  Oil palm
  Soya
  Corncockle
  Thale cress.