Cultivating Commerce
Cultures of Botany in Britain and France, 1760–1815

A new social history of botany in Britain and France, 1760–1815, demonstrating the significance of commerce, horticulture and amateur scholarship.

Sarah Easterby-Smith (Author)

9781107565685, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 June 2019

253 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.3 cm, 0.35 kg

'Cultivating Commerce very convincingly retraces the protean pathways of knowledge through the logic of the marketplace, while at the same time highlighting how the elite nurseries played out their rivalries within scientific fields that they had contributed to broaden. This work will stand as an essential contribution to the history of science in the public sphere.' Therese Bru, Metascience

Sarah Easterby-Smith rewrites the histories of botany and horticulture from the perspectives of plant merchants who sold botanical specimens in the decades around 1800. These merchants were not professional botanists, nor were they the social equals of refined amateurs of botany. Nevertheless, they participated in Enlightenment scholarly networks, acting as intermediaries who communicated information and specimens. Thanks to their practical expertise, they also became sources of new knowledge in their own right. Cultivating Commerce argues that these merchants made essential contributions to botanical history, although their relatively humble status means that their contributions have received little sustained attention to date. Exploring how the expert nurseryman emerged as a new social figure in Britain and France, and examining what happened to the elitist, masculine culture of amateur botany when confronted by expanding public participation, Easterby-Smith sheds fresh light on the evolution of transnational Enlightenment networks during the Age of Revolutions.

Introduction: cultivating commerce
1. Plant traders and expertise
2. Science, commerce and culture
3. Amateur botany
4. Social status and the communication of knowledge
5. Commerce and cosmopolitanism
6. Cosmopolitanism under pressure
Conclusion: commerce and cultivation.

Subject Areas: History: specific events & topics [HBT], European history [HBJD]