In the introduction to Intertwined Histories, editor Jim Ellis offers a compelling overview of the plant–human nexus in sociohistorical context. Ellis identifies multiple instances of these inspiring interspecies relations as they have thrived over time, as well as their many benefits for humanity. Concretizing his argument, Ellis asserts that “plants were the first to colonize the planet; they created the soil and the atmosphere that made life possible for the animal” (p. xiii).
The collective thesis of Intertwined Histories is that humans have failed to afford extrabiological attributes to flora despite their long classification as living organisms; many of these attributes are speculative, arising from philosophical, cultural, and psychological concerns. Ellis and the other contributors argue that these speculative facets of plant being might afford multidimensional lessons for humans, even improving human beings as an entity here on this earth that we share with flora.
The most compelling aspect of Intertwined Histories is its strong focus on the role of flora in shaping human existence. Plants have been clearly and inextricably linked to human survival at least since the emergence of Homo sapiens. As Ellis argues, the critical importance of plants to both human and animal evolution is ancient and is well documented by anthropologists.
The book particularly excels in explaining those material ways in which plants become legible evidence of a link to the ancient past, as substantiated through “ancient cultivated trees, old terraces, abandoned houses, drainage channels: traces of human presence are everywhere” (p. 102). Flora are presented here as vital epistemological tools to decipher the characteristics of premodern settlement environments.
Yet the broader imperative of Intertwined Histories is to extend the critical-theoretical treatment of plants in human societies, moving from a descriptive, empirical style toward a more expansive framework, which calls for a significant loosening of academic strictures. Key to this imperative, the book illustrates the need for a new delineation of how the individual boundaries among various forms of lives are operationalized. Such operational boundaries are key to demonstrating how flora’s legibility (or illegibility) as social actors is defined by humans.
Hardly any human activity can be divorced from the presence and entanglements with plant life. Human actions have an impact on plants and vice versa. Plants often work to mitigate the deleterious effects of various human actions. For instance, concerning global warming, evidence is mounting that plants have far-reaching effects in stemming global warming by removing huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
Based on historical analyses, Intertwined Histories also presents a new paradigm in the understanding of plant mobility. Plant life is generally distinguished from human and animal life as stationary—rooted to a specific environment somewhere on the globe. Yet Intertwined Histories offers multiple rich examples that tell the story of plant migration from one part of the earth to another, albeit often tied to both human and animal life. This material on plant migration captures a critical underlying thesis on interaction between plants and other life forms as social. In discussing plant movement, food historians have generally argued that perhaps only two crops (maize and cassava) are worthy of mentioning when discussing the European introduction of crops into West Africa in precolonial times. Yet, it now appears that a large number of plants did migrate from other parts of the world to Africa.
One of the book’s most fascinating sections deals with plants as actors who must contend with risk. As plants migrate, the possibility of their arriving in an unhealthy environment, or other hazardous situations remain constant. Yet, protracted misconceptions about plants as mere species based on structure and locations, it is argued, must be reconceived as behavioral patterns, and even reconsiderered as forms of ideology because “plants could absorb information about their environment and [perfectly] respond to it” (p. 4). Regarding this aspect of plant biology, Intertwined Histories argues for a provocative critical engagement that would explicate the multifaceted dispositions of plants across the globe, affording plants the qualities of beings, like animals and humans, who are social in their struggle for survival.
Another compelling aspect of this study depicts core philosophical questions about plants’ ability for the capacity for comprehension in line with survival strategies, scientifically known as phytognosis. This idea suggests that that humans must work to perceive plants within their societies, by resisting our common “plant blindness” (p. 15). Other moments of significant change in plant–human sociability are presented here and could serve as inspiration for another paradigm shift.
At the same time, the book sometimes lapses into moralistic arguments, such as one that humans could learn the art of self-sufficiency from plants, seeming a bit myopic about our collective dependency on plant energy. As an edited volume, Intertwined Histories, then, perhaps suffers from its contradictions. For instance, elsewhere in the text, it is strongly argued that “the relationships between native grasses, plains bison, and indigenous people seem obvious and simple” (p. 68).
A greater strength in the text is its attention to plant communication techniques. Like other forms of life, plants possess unique forms of communication within their environment. Distressingly, the text elucidates, some of these forms of communication might be threatened by environmental degradation and plant-blind human activities that seem to stifle the sociability of plants.
Toward the preservation of biodiversity at large, Intertwined Histories provides inspirational suggestions that might be of interest to horticulturists, botanists, and other specialists, including myriad insights into flora’s sociobehavioral dynamics through artistic narratives. These narratives are drawn from the works of prominent artists who offer fresh perspectives on understanding the social attributes of plants, including but not limited to how a plant might learn, react to its environment, produce energy, respond to weather, manufacture foods, and more. Further, Intertwined Histories skillfully refutes numerous misconceptions about plants, such as mobility, responsivity, and several other uniquely misunderstood qualities. Unfortunately, these insights are often highly specialized and geographically limited. Despite its strengths, Intertwined Histories suffers from a limited geographical scope and could have benefited by incorporating further studies from Africa, Asia, and Europe. This limitation might have prevented a more meaningful and encompassing investigation into the social nexus between plants and humans.
The text is perhaps also limited by its failure to more closely examine plants’ ability to express human histories, as our predecessors, prime energy source, and cohort on earth. Despite its shortcomings, Intertwined Histories engages fresh and welcoming perspectives on social interactions between plants and human growth. It comes well recommended as an important contribution to those expansive new literatures that revisit the breadth of plant–human relations.
British Academy;
Department of History and International Studies, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria.
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