Customer Reviews

Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline

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This book is a great compilation from leading ethnobotanists, describing the field, and bringing pertinent issues to the fore. It is an excellent collection, with well-renowned ethnobotanists like Plotkin, Balick, and Naranjo. It is an excellent source, and tells all about ethnobotany, the science that may preserve human existence now, and in the future.

A broad range of excellent papers are collected in this volume that gives a variety of perspectives on the history and field of ethnobotany itself. For example, one point that is made is how difficult it is for a Western scientist who had bee trained in an agroindustrial world to understand both the scientific and culturally relevant aspects of a plant, especially since the scientist perspective is so different from the person who has grown up in a culture so different and dependent on a more intimate relationship with the biological world. It will serve as a fine and authoritative reference for my classes where ethnobotanical investigation has relevance.

Great book for you plant nerds out there...a book edited by the late great Richard Schultes?...what more can you ask for?