The Cabaret of Plants

Posted on 04 September 2017 by Richard Mabey

The Cabaret of Plants is a masterful, globe trotting exploration of the relationship between humans and the kingdom of plants by the renowned naturalist Richard Mabey.A rich, sweeping, and wonderfully readable work of botanical history, The Cabaret of Plants explores dozens of plant species that for millennia have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty, and belief Going back to the beginnings of human history, Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.Writing in a celebrated style that the Economist calls delightful and casually learned, Mabey takes readers from the Himalayas to Madagascar to theto our own backyards He ranges through the work of writers, artists, and scientists such as da Vinci, Keats, Darwin, and van Gogh and across nearly 40,000 years of human history Ice Age images of plant life in ancient cave art and the earliest representations of the Garden of Eden Newton s apple and gravity, Priestley s sprig of mint and photosynthesis, and Wordsworth s daffodils the history of cultivated plants such as maize, ginseng, and cotton and the ways the sturdy oak became the symbol of British nationhood and the giant sequoia came to epitomize the spirit of America.Complemented by dozens of full color illustrations, The Cabaret of Plants is the magnum opus of a great naturalist and an extraordinary exploration of the deeply interwined history of humans and the natural world. Read The Cabaret of Plants author Richard Mabey – kino-fada.fr The introduction was long full of fuzzy ideas I m interested in a scientific look at the plants he drifts into poetry criticizes a conservationist for using economic arguments Ridiculous Economics is a powerful drive one that needs to be addressed to have any realistic hope He s amazed that rare native species appeared along a track he bulldozed through his property I find a lot amazing about that statement, but it s not the tenacity of the plants He also mentions h The introduction was long full of fuzzy ideas I m interested in a scientific look at the plants he drifts into poetry criticizes a conservationist for using economic arguments Ridiculous Economics is a powerful drive one that needs to be addressed to have any realistic hope He s amazed that rare native species appeared along a track he bulldozed through his property I find a lot amazing about th...Richard Mabey, noted British naturalist, has produced an impassioned plea for accepting plants on their own terms by demonstrating the diverse and still imperfectly understood life processes of plants that take place for the purposes of plants themselves rather than for those of humans In the process, he documents the ways in which humans have incorporated plants into our own hubristic and anthropocentric view of the world This intent is signaled in his working subtitle, A Romantic Flora, wh Richard Mabey, noted British naturalist, has produced an impassioned plea for accepting plants on their own terms by demonstrating the diverse and still imperfectly understood life processes of plants that take place for the purposes of plants themselves rather than for those of humans In the process, he documents the ways in which humans have incorporated plants into our own hubristic and anthropocentric view of the world This intent is signaled in his working subtitle, A Romantic Flora, which was expanded, perhaps by that most elusive of creatures, a talented editor, into Fo...Imagine if plants wrote their biography it would be this book Mabey takes readers through a fascinating look at our leafy green friends over the last 40,000 years Even if you don t have a green thumb, you ll be amazed b...Can I possibly needresearch on the subject after reading Mabey s wonderful book This is a comprehensive and very enjoyable work on various species of plants and their relationship with mankind If you would like to learn which trees possessed mystical characteristics for our ancestors, and which were suspected of having wondrous medicinal properties, this is great place to start If you need to check a phrase floral gangbang off your literary bucket list, look no further Lovely book th Can I possibly needresearch on the subject after reading Mabey s wonderful book This is a comprehensive and very enjoyable work on various species of plants and their relationship with mankind If you would like to learn which trees possessed mystical characteristics for our ancestors, and which were suspected of havi...This one is actually pretty good, but it kept losing the competition to other,interesting books I ve had it out twice, and probably read about half of it I could get it out again, but likely won t Returned unfinished.Published 2015Author Richard MabeyI received this book as a Christmas present after I d seen an article about it in a magazine I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Cabaret of Plants which was a combination of fact and myth I loved the vegetable lamb There were illustrations dotted around which I thought complimented the book Being an avid gardener this book was entertaining and informative I d not come across Richard Mabey before but will definitely check out his other works Published 2015Author Richard MabeyI received this book as a Christmas present after I d seen an article about it in a magazine I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Cabaret of Plants which was a combination of fact and myth I loved the vegetable lamb There were illustrations dotted around which I thought complimented the book Being an avid gardener this boo...I left the ease of reading short entertaining books when I saw the cover of this book and was simply drawn in It is a varied feast of botany and the history thereof, livened with experiences of discovery, study and depiction of fou...A whole string of essays about cool plants giant ian water lilies, ancient pagan yews, ferns, daffodilsI learned a lot, and Mabey s writing has flashes of inspiration But it doesn t quite hold together I wish there was a clearer theme, a direction for all of these sketches But rather the overweeni...huge overview and history of plants and humans, mainly, but not exclusively, from uk and westerns perspectives, fun reading, great writer wonderful color illustrations end notes and references and additional reading and good picture credits pages and index,It took me 2 attempts to read this book which shows how my own emotional wellbeing affects my reading This was a Xmas present when I started reading it I failed to engage with it at all I did meet Mabey once He is a great admirer of the poet John Clare, who I love I was preparing to write my herbal medicine dissertation was hoping to look at plants mentioned by Clare in his poetry hoped Mabey could give me advice He wasn t very helpful One of the herbal medicine textbooks It took me 2 attempts to read this book which shows how my own emotional wellbeing affects my reading This was a Xmas present when I started reading it I failed to engage with it at all I did meet Mabey once He is a great admirer of the poet John Clare, who I love I was preparing to write my herbal medicine dissertation was hoping to look at plants mentioned by Clare in his poetry hoped Mabey could give me advice He wasn t very helpful One of the herbal medicine textbooks I often used was edited by Mabey I thought he would be a supporter of herbal medicine When I read Nature Cure I was expecting herbal medicine to be part of the cure It wasn t It is a lovely book I read the chapter about Ginseng in The Cabaret of Plants was infuriated It was an attack on what he...An excellent book Ecology at it s best Fascinating historical perspective on plants.Richard Mabey is my new favourite science writer There is so much information here that I could re read many times I did jot down a few favourites while reading in Mexico there are 160 species of oak, 109 of which grow nowhere else Orchids grow in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland If you go stay in the spa town of Lisdoonvarna 14,000 years ago plants crossed the land bridges which still joined Britain to the continent Ginseng is the orig Richard Mabey is my new favourite science writer There is so much information here that I could re read many times I did jot down a few favourites while reading in Mexico there are 160 species of oak, 109 of which grow nowhere else Orchids grow in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland If you go stay in the spa town of Lisdoonvarna 14,000 years ago plants crossed the land bridges which still joined Brita...

English
04 September 2017

Richard Mabey