Book Reviews: The History of the World in 100 Plants
By Simon Barnes
“We still couldn’t live for a day without plants. Our past is all about plants; our present is all tied up with plants; and without plants, there is no future”. – Simon Barnes
Simon Barnes is the author of a number of books including, Rewild Yourself and The History of the World in 100 Animals has put together a recent book that focuses on the 100 plants that have had the greatest impact on humanity. The History of the World in 100 Plants outlines through essays (or chapters) 100 global plants, from the Strangler fig to the Bodhi Tree which have changed the course of history. [note: the books includes a total of nine fungi and two are algae in his list though technically they are not plants].
Every chapter begins with a quote, drawn from a wide range of sources from Buddha to William Shakespeare. And while it is a book about biology, in reality it is a summary of the broader role of plants in human history and development as well as cultural associations of people with various plants.
100 Plants has plenty of photographs and art works to emphasise the key story points and is both accessible and well written with a sense of humour including a range of analogies to literature, films, songs and popular culture. It is a book to dip into, reading a few chapters at a time.
The selection presented in 100 Plants is a wide-ranging though at times it’s hard to get the rationale for some plants inclusion other than Barnes preferences. He includes world history-changing’ plants such as wheat, rice, maize, sugarcane, barley, cotton (“the most widespread non-food crop in the world”), potato, tobacco, cinchona, papyrus, opium poppy, tea, coffee, and soybean. Other less obvious plants such as kigelia, field bindweed, cucumber, strawberry, the Venus flytrap and cabbage are also included. Barnes looks to weave a story for and case for every selected plant’s inclusion.
While some plants have brought great benefits to humanity, others have been detrimental – and 100 Plants includes examples of both and those in-between. It only includes one extinct species, the Calamites, the ancient forests that decomposed over millions of years becoming the fossil fuel coal which has both helped and hindered human development but either way Barnes included it as a plant which has “changed the course of human history”.
One chapter focuses on ‘American grass’, which is the legacy of US involvement in the Vietnam War during which large areas of forest were ‘removed’ by Agent Orange and other defoliants. What has grown back instead of the original forest is a thick, impenetrable tussocky grass which grows up to 3 m high which is now referred to as ‘American Grass’.
The final chapter focuses on dipterocarps, among the tallest forest trees which are increasingly under threat and Barnes considers them the “classic rainforest tree”. These trees are a resource to many other species of the forest, and are “a central part of the greatest living community on Earth” with Barnes ending on a call for conservation and the pressing need to preserve biodiversity.
Throughout 100 Plants, Barnes does make some key points on the importance of plants to our planet and human existence. In his words: “we consume the energy of the sun in the form of food. The sun is available for consumption because of plants. Plants make food from the sun by the process of photosynthesis; nothing else in the world can do this. We eat plants, or we do so at second hand, by eating the eaters of plants. Plants give us food. Plants take in carbon dioxide and push out oxygen: they give us the air we breathe, direct the rain that falls and moderate the climate. Plants also give us shelter, beauty, comfort, meaning, buildings, boats, containers, musical instruments, medicines and religious symbols. We use flowers for love, we use flowers for death. The fossils of plants power our industries and our transport. Across history we have used plants to store knowledge, to kill, to fuel wars, to change our state of consciousness, to indicate our status. We got fire from plants; we have enslaved people for the sake of plants.
We humans like to see ourselves as a species that has risen above the animal kingdom, doing what we will with the world. But we couldn't live for a day without plants”.
The History of the World in 100 Plants is an interesting book with a lot of stories and facts. The choice of the 100 plants is not always obvious with some surprise inclusions and exclusions in my view. Personally, I would have preferred a more in depth focus on the key plants which have made a real and lasting global impact versus the feeling that at times Barnes is trying to get to a list of 100 plants for the sake of it.
This is a well presented and beautifully laid out book and is a worthwhile read which has a general interest appeal for those interested in social history as much as plants. It lacks the depth that you’d find in specialist publications but what it does do is offer stories and facts which stimulate interest and offer starting points for further exploration.
Black Teal Bay Books rating: 7.5 / 10
