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Planting the World: Joseph Banks and his Collectors: An Adventurous History of Botany
‘Based on meticulous research in original sources … Goodman illustrates vividly how adept [Banks] was … Shining a light on individuals whose achievements are relatively uncelebrated’
Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books
A bold new history of how botany and global plant collecting – centred at Kew Gardens and driven by Joseph Banks – transformed the earth.
Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the eighteenth century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds – it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe’s industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion.
Joseph Banks was the dynamo for this momentous change. As botanist for James Cook’s great voyage to the South Pacific on the Endeavour, Banks collected plants on a vast scale, armed with the vision – as a child of the Enlightenment – that to travel physically was to advance intellectually. His thinking was as intrepid as Cook’s seafaring: he commissioned radically influential and physically daring expeditions such as those of Francis Masson to the Cape Colony, George Staunton to China, George Caley to Australia, William Bligh to Tahiti and Jamaica, among many others.
Jordan Goodman’s epic history follows these high seas adventurers and their influence in Europe, as well as taking us back to the early years of Kew Gardens, which Banks developed devotedly across the course of his life, transforming it into one of the world’s largest and most diverse botanical gardens.
In a rip-roaring global expedition, based on original sources in many languages, Goodman gives a momentous history of how the discoveries made by Banks and his collectors advanced scientific understanding around the world.
Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books
A bold new history of how botany and global plant collecting – centred at Kew Gardens and driven by Joseph Banks – transformed the earth.
Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the eighteenth century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds – it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe’s industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion.
Joseph Banks was the dynamo for this momentous change. As botanist for James Cook’s great voyage to the South Pacific on the Endeavour, Banks collected plants on a vast scale, armed with the vision – as a child of the Enlightenment – that to travel physically was to advance intellectually. His thinking was as intrepid as Cook’s seafaring: he commissioned radically influential and physically daring expeditions such as those of Francis Masson to the Cape Colony, George Staunton to China, George Caley to Australia, William Bligh to Tahiti and Jamaica, among many others.
Jordan Goodman’s epic history follows these high seas adventurers and their influence in Europe, as well as taking us back to the early years of Kew Gardens, which Banks developed devotedly across the course of his life, transforming it into one of the world’s largest and most diverse botanical gardens.
In a rip-roaring global expedition, based on original sources in many languages, Goodman gives a momentous history of how the discoveries made by Banks and his collectors advanced scientific understanding around the world.
560 pages, Hardcover
Published January 5, 2021
23 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
About the author
Jordan Goodman
19 books4 followersJordan Goodman has published extensively on the history of medicine and science, and on cultural and economic history. He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 25, 2021
not a biography of banks, but honed in to his interests in plant discovery around earth 1760s-1820s . he had gone with cook on first voyage (banks' only and last) and subsequently advocates for more scientists and plant hunters and artist s to accompany surveying or other expeditions. author has divided his well written and easy to read book into a chapter for each big voyage, like bligh going for bread fruit then the mutiny, then another chapter bligh going again for breadfruit and successfully bringing trees back to west indies.
Lots in this book to please and make one think. has color plates, end notes, rich bibliography, and good index.
Lots in this book to please and make one think. has color plates, end notes, rich bibliography, and good index.
February 19, 2021
Interesting topic and chock full of history however there is no narrative so it just reads like a time-line. I read the entire book and know very little about Banks himself and there was zero swashbuckling that was mentioned in the jacket blurb; just white men of privilege traveling the world bring plants back and forth and introducing them to new locations.
March 11, 2023
This book provides an exhaustive account of the various journeys around the globe that Joseph Banks or one of his team of plant collectors joined. Unfortunately, it is pretty light on botanical content.
As a gardener, I was expecting this book to increase my knowledge of botanical and gardening history - after all, the subtitle is "an adventurous history of botany". Unfortunately, I learned very little. This is because Goodman spends most of his time discussing the details of the journeys to get to the plant-hunting locations and barely any time at all on the actual plants.
So, for example, when describing a plant-collecting trip to China, we are informed that "At 8 a.m. on 9 February 1816 the three-ship flotilla consisting of HMS Alceste, HMS Lyra and the East India Company ship General Hewitt set sail from Spithead. The instructions to Captain Maxwell on HMS Alceste commanded him to sail through the Atlantic, stopping at Madeira, Rio de Janiero, the Cape, and then into the Indian Ocean through the straights of Sunda, and then..."
And so it goes on. And on. And on.
Yet when referring to the plants that were discovered during this trip, Jordan simply writes that they "managed to collect some entirely new plants", marking a footnote against this information. And when checking the footnote, I was told that to find out what plants they discovered on this trip, I needed to consult Goodman's original source! This happened multiple times - I waded through page after page of detailed descriptions of ships, crew, navigation routes...only to be told that the journey resulted in new plants being brought back to Britain, details of which were listed in original source material...
If you want to read a book about maritime history of the 17 and 1800s then you will probably really enjoy this. But if you want to read about the new plants and botanical knowledge gained by Britain during the same period, don't expect to find it here. I'm really puzzled as to why this got billed as a botanical history in the first place, when it's pretty obvious Goodman is viewing the botanical stuff as a tiresome interruption to the 'real story' of the voyages.
As a gardener, I was expecting this book to increase my knowledge of botanical and gardening history - after all, the subtitle is "an adventurous history of botany". Unfortunately, I learned very little. This is because Goodman spends most of his time discussing the details of the journeys to get to the plant-hunting locations and barely any time at all on the actual plants.
So, for example, when describing a plant-collecting trip to China, we are informed that "At 8 a.m. on 9 February 1816 the three-ship flotilla consisting of HMS Alceste, HMS Lyra and the East India Company ship General Hewitt set sail from Spithead. The instructions to Captain Maxwell on HMS Alceste commanded him to sail through the Atlantic, stopping at Madeira, Rio de Janiero, the Cape, and then into the Indian Ocean through the straights of Sunda, and then..."
And so it goes on. And on. And on.
Yet when referring to the plants that were discovered during this trip, Jordan simply writes that they "managed to collect some entirely new plants", marking a footnote against this information. And when checking the footnote, I was told that to find out what plants they discovered on this trip, I needed to consult Goodman's original source! This happened multiple times - I waded through page after page of detailed descriptions of ships, crew, navigation routes...only to be told that the journey resulted in new plants being brought back to Britain, details of which were listed in original source material...
If you want to read a book about maritime history of the 17 and 1800s then you will probably really enjoy this. But if you want to read about the new plants and botanical knowledge gained by Britain during the same period, don't expect to find it here. I'm really puzzled as to why this got billed as a botanical history in the first place, when it's pretty obvious Goodman is viewing the botanical stuff as a tiresome interruption to the 'real story' of the voyages.
July 14, 2024
I wanted to find out about Joseph Banks and his life after his voyage with Captain Cook. This book was more an account of the voyages that he had involvement with as a patron, and enabler and his relationship with botanists, gardeners and others who helped Kew Gardens amass its collection of plants from across the world. The book is organized around accounts of each voyage and is very interesting although the narratives sometimes feel a little light on detail. Overall, it was interesting to find out more about Banks’s influence, his devotion to the king and the pivotal role he played in the global transportation of plants in this period.
January 16, 2023
Loved this book. Fascinating to learn where certain plants came from and learn about all who were involved in collecting them.
July 17, 2025
An intriguing account of the lengths to which some British individuals were willing to go in order to collect specimens of new botanical species—despite the perils of global travel by sailing ship, exposure to tropical diseases, and the constant threat of war with rival nations.
During a botanical expedition to the Congo in 1816, the toll was grim: “John Cranch had succumbed after a few days of being ill. Then William Tudor, one of the first to fall sick, died on 29 August. Many others followed. Smith died on 14 September; John Eyre, the purser, died on 27 September; and Tuckey, one of the last to be struck down, died on 4 October. In total, 21 men died out of a company of 54. It was a disaster.”
Their motivations were varied—a mix of scientific curiosity, ambition, a thirst for adventure, and perhaps simply a desire to escape life in Britain. As for Joseph Banks, the mastermind behind many of the expeditions described in the book, his aim was to serve “his sovereign and friend George III, whose gardens at Kew he wanted to astonish the world.”
During a botanical expedition to the Congo in 1816, the toll was grim: “John Cranch had succumbed after a few days of being ill. Then William Tudor, one of the first to fall sick, died on 29 August. Many others followed. Smith died on 14 September; John Eyre, the purser, died on 27 September; and Tuckey, one of the last to be struck down, died on 4 October. In total, 21 men died out of a company of 54. It was a disaster.”
Their motivations were varied—a mix of scientific curiosity, ambition, a thirst for adventure, and perhaps simply a desire to escape life in Britain. As for Joseph Banks, the mastermind behind many of the expeditions described in the book, his aim was to serve “his sovereign and friend George III, whose gardens at Kew he wanted to astonish the world.”
December 25, 2023
Very enjoyable ready that is filled with references. Highly recommended if you would be interested in expanding your knowledge of this fascinating time in botany.
December 21, 2024
Took me forever and a day. Dense.
September 23, 2025
Informative but dry as toast. Suitable only for a scholarly audience.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews