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Knowing where to start isn't always easy, especially when you're dealing with an unfamiliar subject. Sometimes the best place to start is a subject specific dictionary or encyclopedia. Below is a selected list of online reference resources
- Britannica This link opens in a new windowAuthoritative references, including articles from the print Encyclopædia Britannica, articles specially written for Britannica Online, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Britannica Book of the Year, etc.
- Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new windowLiterary guide to significant sources on a variety of subjects. Works as an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia.
- Oxford Research Encyclopedias This link opens in a new windowLong-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars. Both foundational and cutting-edge topics are covered in order to develop, over time, an anchoring knowledge base for major areas of research.
Access to selected content only. Some articles may not be available.
Nature's Pharmacopeia : A World of Medicinal Plants
This textbook pairs the best research on the biochemical properties and physiological effects of medicinal plants with a fascinating history of their use throughout human civilization, revealing the influence of nature's pharmacopeia on art, war, conquest, and law. The book opens with an overview of the use of medicinal plants in the traditional practices and indigenous belief systems of people in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and ancient Europe. It then connects medicinal plants to the growth of scientific medicine in the West. Subsequent chapters cover the regulation of drugs; the use of powerful plant chemicals-such as cocaine, nicotine, and caffeine-in various medical settings; and the application of biomedicine's intellectual frameworks to the manufacture of novel drugs from ancient treatments.
Rice: global networks and new histories
Rice today is food to half the world's population. Its history is inextricably entangled with the emergence of colonialism, the global networks of industrial capitalism, and the modern world economy. The fifteen chapters of Rice, written by specialists on Africa, the Americas, and Asia, are premised on the utility of a truly international approach to history. Together they cast new light on the significant roles of rice as crop, food, and commodity, and shape historical trajectories and interregional linkages in Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Bitter Chocolate : investigating the dark side of the world's most seductive sweet
Behind the sweet image of the cocoa bean there is a long history of exploitation, corruption, greed and slavery. In Bitter Chocolate, Carol Off traces the history of the cocoa craze from the eighteenth century onwards, through its evolution under such overseers as Hershey, Cadbury and Mars, and its connection to the violence in Cote d'lvoire, the West African nation that produces almost half of the world's cocoa beans.
The Power of the Poppy: harnessing nature's most dangerous plant ally
A comprehensive look at the inspiring, healing, and addictive powers of the Opium Poppy and its derivatives throughout history. From 6,000-year-old poppy seeds found in archaeological digs in Europe to the black tar heroin factories of South America and the modern "War on Drugs," Kenaz Filan explores the history of this enduring plant and its many derivatives--including opium, morphine, oxycodone, methadone, and fentanyl--as well as its symbiotic relationship with humans as medicine, food, intoxicant, and visionary tool.
Tobacco: the story of how tobacco seduced the world
In Tobacco, Iain Gately charts the epic history of humanity's fascination with our favorite recreational drug, from its obscure beginnings among ancient civilizations, through its rise to global prominence, to its embattled state today. Gately argues that it was the driving force behind the development of global trade, as the foundation of the Dutch mercantile empire, the fulcrum of the African slave trade, and the financial basis for our victory in the American Revolution. He also traces the global evolution of the plant's use: how the sacred calumet of the Plains Indian tribes became adopted by samurai warriors in Japan; how Napoleon's armies spread the cigarette as they conquered the European continent; and how purveyors developed filter-tips and mentholated cigarettes in the late twentieth century as the detrimental health effects became increasingly known.
The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic, 1630-1800
In the eighteenth century, malaria was a prevalent and deadly disease, and the only effective treatment was found in the Andean forests of Spanish America: a medicinal bark harvested from cinchona trees that would later give rise to the antimalarial drug quinine. The Andean Wonder Drug uses the story of cinchona bark to demonstrate how the imperial politics of knowledge in the Spanish Atlantic ultimately undermined efforts to transform European science into a tool of empire.
Pepper : a guide to the world's favorite spice
If you are interested in pepper--its provenance, history, taste, and uses--then this is a book for you. J.E. Barth recounts the fascinating history of pepper from ancient times through the present and traces the challenges at each step of the pepper supply chain as it make its way from the growers to the kitchens and dining tables around the world. He covers quality assessment, storage, processing, taste and uses of pepper, including its cosmetic and pharmacological applications.
The Coffee Book : anatomy of an industry from crop to the last drop
This updated edition of The Coffee Book is jammed full of facts, figures, cartoons, and commentary covering coffee from its first use in Ethiopia in the sixth century to the rise of Starbucks and the emergence of Fair Trade coffee in the twenty-first. The book explores the process of cultivation, harvesting, and roasting from bean to cup; surveys the social history of café society from the first coffeehouses in Constantinople to beatnik havens in Berkeley and Greenwich Village; and tells the dramatic tale of high-stakes international trade and speculation for a product that can make or break entire national economies. It also examines the industry's major players, revealing the damage that's been done to farmers, laborers, and the environment by mass cultivation--and explores the growing "conscious coffee" market.
Domestication of Plants in the Old World
Domestication of Plants in the Old World reviews and synthesizes the information on the origins and domestication of cultivated plants in the Old World, and subsequently the spread of cultivation from southwest Asia into Asia, Europe, and north Africa, from the very earliest beginnings.This new edition revises and updates previous data and incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors, and incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculture within the region.
Empire of Cotton: a global history
The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today. The result is a book as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.
A World History of Rubber
A World History of Rubber helps readers understand and gain new insights into the social and cultural contexts of global production and consumption, from the nineteenth century to today, through the fascinating story of one commodity. Divides the coverage into themes of race, migration, and labor; gender on plantations and in factories; demand and everyday consumption; World Wars and nationalism; and resistance and independence. Discusses key concepts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including imperialism, industrialization, racism, and inequality, through the lens of rubber.
Spores: Tulips with Fever, Rusty Coffee, Rotten Apples, Sad Oranges, Crazy Basil.
Plant diseases caused, in the past, significant economic losses, deaths, famine, wars, and migration. Some of them marked the history of entire countries. One example among many: the potato late blight in Ireland in 1845. Today plant diseases are still the cause of deaths, often silent, in developing countries, and relevant economic losses in the industrialized ones. This book wants to describe, in simple words, often enriched by the author's personal experience, various plant diseases that, in different times and countries, did cause severe losses and damages.
