In 2004 Londa Schiebinger published ‚Plants and empire: colonial bioprospecting in the Atlantic World’. This year, on the 12th of October, the 525th anniversary of the „Discovery of America“ by Christopher Columbus is still commerated by countries such as the US, Colombia, Spain and Italy. Reading together ‚Plants and empire’ we want to question this legacy of explorers, whose arrival in the Americas lead to colonalization and slavery. Schiebinger is an interdisciplinary historian researching on gender and ethnicity. She says about her work:

This book presents the story not of a great man or a great woman, but of a great plant. Historians, post-colonialists, even historians of science rarely recognize the importance of plants to the processes that form and reform human societies and politics on a global scale. Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life in proportion to their importance to humans. Yet they are significant natural and cultural artifacts, often at the center of high intrigue.

The dedication of Schiebinger’s book goes „To the memory of the men and women whose knowledge of fertility control has been lost in the mists of time and to the ravages of history“.