{"product_id":"the-cabaret-of-plants-forty-thousand-years-of-plant-life-and-the-human-imagination-9780393353860","title":"The Cabaret of Plants: Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe Cabaret of Plants\u003c\/em\u003e is a masterful, globe-trotting exploration of the relationship between humans and the kingdom of plants by the renowned naturalist Richard Mabey.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA rich, sweeping, and wonderfully readable work of botanical history, \u003cem\u003eThe Cabaret of Plants\u003c\/em\u003e explores dozens of plant species that for millennia have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty, and belief. Going back to the beginnings of human history, Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWriting in a celebrated style that the \u003cem\u003eEconomist\u003c\/em\u003e calls \"delightful and casually learned,\" Mabey takes readers from the Himalayas to Madagascar to the Amazon to our own backyards. He ranges through the work of writers, artists, and scientists such as da Vinci, Keats, Darwin, and van Gogh and across nearly 40,000 years of human history: Ice Age images of plant life in ancient cave art and the earliest representations of the Garden of Eden; Newton's apple and gravity, Priestley's sprig of mint and photosynthesis, and Wordsworth's daffodils; the history of cultivated plants such as maize, ginseng, and cotton; and the ways the sturdy oak became the symbol of British nationhood and the giant sequoia came to epitomize the spirit of America.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eComplemented by dozens of full-color illustrations, \u003cem\u003eThe Cabaret of Plants\u003c\/em\u003e is the magnum opus of a great naturalist and an extraordinary exploration of the deeply interwined history of humans and the natural world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMabey, Richard:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eRichard Mabey\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of \u003cem\u003eFood for Free\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eFlora Britannica\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eWeeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants\u003c\/em\u003e, among other books. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has narrated popular BBC television and radio series and written for the \u003cem\u003eGuardian\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eGranta\u003c\/em\u003e. He lives in Norfolk, England.","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50503315357970,"sku":"9780393353860","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ca414754-ded5-4222-bea3-6e59adb5825b.jpg?v=1730788163","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-cabaret-of-plants-forty-thousand-years-of-plant-life-and-the-human-imagination-9780393353860","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}