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Plants and People in the long Eighteenth Century

Module description

This module will investigate how plants have shaped the history of the eighteenth century for Europeans at home and abroad in a colonial context. Because they are eaten, medicinal, curious, beautiful, poisonous, or useful, plants attracted (and attract) constant attention. This module will examine the European understanding of plant-life and how species such as potatoes, tea-bush, coffee plant, or pineapples were part of historical events between 1650 and 1820, including colonisation, trade, scientific discoveries, and social reforms. It will ask students to consider what is a historical actor and how much of our “natural” environment is the result of human interference.

Module aims - intentions of the module

By focusing on case studies of different plant species or ecological environments through a wide range of sources including written (travel writing, official orders, scientific texts), iconographic (garden maps, architectural plans), and material (herbaria specimens), this module aims to:

• Provide an overview of the key developments in plant-knowledge in the eighteenth century in the context of Europe and its colonies
• Familiarise students with the various sources used by historians to study environmental history
• Introduce some key questions from environmental history as well as history of science, social history, economic history, imperial history, and history of race
• Equip students with analytical and critical skills necessary for approaching future historical work

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess the impact of plant-life on Europeans at home, in colonies, and abroad in the global eighteenth century
• 2. Work critically with a range of sources of different kinds and from diverse perspectives relating to plants in the eighteenth century

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Identify the problems of using historical sources e.g. bias, reliability, etc., and compare the validity of different types of source (e.g. written, visual, material)
• 4. Demonstrate the ability to apply different methodological approaches to the analysis of historical sources
• 5. Present historical arguments and answer questions orally

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, delivered in written and oral form
• 7. Write to a tight word-limit
• 8. Reflect critically on your own work, respond constructively to feedback, and to implement suggestions and improve work on this basis

Syllabus plan

While content may vary from year to year, it is anticipated that the module may cover some or all of the following:

• Plants in the Enlightenments: objects or subjects?
• Science – How dried plants changed knowledge forever
• Economy – How China gave tea to the world and how the world tried to take it from China
• Agriculture – How the potato revolutionised European diets
• Society – How coffee fuelled friendships, education, and revolution
• Aesthetic – How taming nature became a sign of prestige and made the pineapple into the king of fruits
• Slavery – How the sugarcane was used to justify enslaving millions and how the breadfruit kept them alive
• Medicine – How cinchona saved the lives of three kings and opened the world to Europeans
• Environmentalism – How Europeans realised that they could kill islands
• Colonisation – How Australia was colonised by both human and vegetable settlers

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Drayton, Richard Harry. Nature’s government: science, imperial Britain, and the ‘improvement’ of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
• Earle, Rebecca. ‘Promoting Potatoes in Eighteenth-Century Europe’. Eighteenth-Century Studies 51, no. 2 (2017): 147–62.
• Easterby-Smith, Sarah. ‘Recalcitrant Seeds: Material Culture and the Global History of Science’. Past & Present 242, no. 14 (1 November 2019): 215–42.
• Grove, Richard. Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Islands Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860. Cambridge; New-York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Hyde, Elizabeth. Cultivated Power: Flowers, Culture, and Politics in the Reign of Louis XIV. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
• Jones, Peter. Agricultural Enlightenment: Knowledge, Technology, and Nature 1750-1840. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Schmidt, Benjamin. ‘Accumulating the World: Collecting and Commodifying “globalism” in Early Modern Europe’. Centres and Cycles of Accumulation in and around the Netherlands during the Early Modern Period, 2011, 129–54.
• Stapelbroek, Koen, and Jani Marjanen. The Rise of Economic Societies in the Eighteenth Century?: Patriotic Reform in Europe and North America. Houndmills, Basinstoke, Hampshire?; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Key words search

Plant humanities; environment; colonialism; trade; travel; eighteenth century; enlightenment; history of science; cultural history; agriculture; social history