7.6 /10 1 Votes
3.8/5 AbeBooks Language English Media type Paperback | 3.8/5 Goodreads Country United Kingdom Subject Human history, Plants Originally published 1985 OCLC 40753070 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publication date 1985 (1st edition), 1999 (2nd edition) Pages 381 pages (2nd edition, paperback) Publishers Sidgwick & Jackson (1st edition), Macmillan Publishers (2nd edition) Plant books Seeds of wealth, Fifty Plants that Changed, Vascular plant families a, Compartmentation of Plant Metabolis, Proteaceae of New South Wa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Seeds of Change: Five Plants That Transformed Mankind is a 1985 book by Henry Hobhouse which explains how the history of the world since Columbus linked America to Europe and has been changed by five plants. It describes how mankind's discovery, usage and trade of sugar, tea, cotton, the potato, and quinine have influenced history to make the modern world.
In the second edition of the book, Seeds of Change: Six Plants that Transformed Mankind, he adds the coca plant to the list. In 2004, he published a follow-up book Seeds of Wealth: Four Plants That Made Men Rich covering timber, wine, rubber, and tobacco.
Reception
David E. Allen writing in Medical History described it as "a thoughtful, thought-provoking, extremely readable work" It has been recommended reading and studied at universities and has been reviewed by the Library Journal, The American Historical Review, and The Atlantic.