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The Plant-Hunter's Atlas
- A World Tour of Botanical Adventures, Chance Discoveries and Strange Specimens
- Narrated by: Ambra Edwards
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
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The Plant-Hunter's Atlas
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Publisher's summary
The Plant Hunter's Atlas is a volume telling some of the most extraordinary tales of horticultural discovery and exploring the characters behind the stories. Taking in the world's inhabited continents and spanning the centuries, the stories range from tales of derring-do in the age of discovery to modern-day botanists working at the cutting-edge of science. The text explores how plant hunters have been inspired by everything from scientific curiosity to economic greed, and their own ingrained sense of adventure.
Among the plant hunters included are: Sir Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, David Douglas, Reginald Farrer, George Forrest, Robert Fortune, Tadeáš Haenke, Tom Hart Dyke, Alexander von Humboldt, the Lobb brothers, John Sibthorp and Ernest Henry Wilson.
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By: Richard Mabey
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Gods, Wasps and Stranglers
- The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees
- By: Mike Shanahan
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible research in a wonderful story
- By Alonsa Guevara on 11-24-22
By: Mike Shanahan
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Founding Gardeners
- The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation
- By: Andrea Wulf
- Narrated by: Antonia Bath
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 201
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 165
From the author of the acclaimed The Brother Gardeners, a fascinating look at the founding fathers from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen, and farmers. For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. These stories reveal a guiding but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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"Outstanding Listen"
- By C. on 05-06-11
By: Andrea Wulf
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1493
- Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,094
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,748
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,747
More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Mindbending History.
- By Betsy Powel on 12-19-11
By: Charles C. Mann
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A Perfect Red
- By: Amy Butler Greenfield
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 100
A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal.
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4 out of 5 stars
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History of a peculiar substance through the ages
- By Tobia on 08-17-16
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American Eden
- David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
- By: Victoria Johnson
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
When Dr. David Hosack tilled the country's first botanical garden in the Manhattan soil more than 200 years ago, he didn't just dramatically alter the New York landscape; he left a monumental legacy of advocacy for public health and wide-ranging support for the sciences. In melodic prose, historian Victoria Johnson eloquently chronicles Hosack's tireless career to reveal the breadth of his impact. The result is a lush portrait of the man who gave voice to a new, deeply American understanding of the powers and perils of nature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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NYC as a semi-rural city
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 04-25-19
By: Victoria Johnson
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The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,674
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,484
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,490
We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
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Dark Emu
- Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?
- By: Bruce Pascoe
- Narrated by: Bruce Pascoe
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been understated in modern retellings of Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the best books ever!!!!
- By Matt Powers on 05-07-18
By: Bruce Pascoe
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The Reason for Flowers
- Their History, Culture, Biology, and How They Change Our Lives
- By: Stephen Buchmann
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Flowers, and the fruits that follow, feed, clothe, sustain, and inspire all humanity. Flowers are used to celebrate all-important occasions, to express love, and are also the basis of global industries. Americans buy 10 million flowers a day, and perfumes are a worldwide industry worth $30 billion annually. Stephen Buchmann takes us along on an exploratory journey of the roles flowers play in the production of our foods, spices, medicines, and perfumes while simultaneously bringing joy and health.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Only for the Flower Lover
- By Anonymous User on 01-19-16
By: Stephen Buchmann
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,665
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,153
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,139
Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Exposes Non-Academic Audience to The Debate Between Ideas of Pre-Colombian America's
- By Christopher on 01-19-17
By: Charles C. Mann
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Who Discovered America?
- The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas
- By: Gavin Menzies, Ian Hudson
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 84
Greatly expanding on his blockbuster 1421, distinguished historian Gavin Menzies uncovers the complete untold history of how mankind came to the Americas - offering new revelations and a radical rethinking of the accepted historical record in Who Discovered America? The iconoclastic historian's magnum opus, Who Discovered America? calls into question our understanding of how the American continents were settled, shedding new light on the well-known "discoveries" of European explorers, including Christopher Columbus.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Like reading an appendix
- By D. McCracken on 01-23-15
By: Gavin Menzies, and others
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The Tree
- A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter
- By: Colin Tudge
- Narrated by: Enn Reitel
- Length: 19 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 80
There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field. From the tallest to the smallest, trees inspire wonder in all of us, and in The Tree, Colin Tudge travels around the world - throughout the United States, the Costa Rican rain forest, Panama and Brazil, India, New Zealand, China, and most of Europe - bringing to life stories and facts about the trees around us.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not the book described in the Audible summary
- By E. Miller on 04-28-17
By: Colin Tudge
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Trees in Paradise
- A California History
- By: Jared Farmer
- Narrated by: Kevin Scollin
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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lovely audiobook
- By Michael M. on 08-02-22
By: Jared Farmer
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The Suppressed History of America
- The Murder of Meriwether Lewis and the Mysterious Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
- By: Paul Schrag, Xaviant Haze
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
Meriwether Lewis discovered far more than the history books tell - ancient civilizations, strange monuments, "nearly white, blue-eyed" Indians, and evidence that the American continent was visited long before the first European settlers arrived. And he was murdered to keep it all secret. Examining the shadows and cracks between America's official version of history, Xaviant Haze and Paul Schrag propose that the America of old taught in schools is not the America that was discovered by Lewis and Clark and other early explorers.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't Bother
- By Georgia Deardoff on 03-31-17
By: Paul Schrag, and others
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Banana
- The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
- By: Dan Koeppel
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist) - ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world's most beloved fruit.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very Good Book - History, Science, and Economics
- By Jose on 11-08-17
By: Dan Koeppel
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Jungle of Stone
- The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya
- By: William Carlsen
- Narrated by: Paul Michael Garcia
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 607
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 542
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 545
In 1839 rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world's most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would rewrite the West's understanding of human history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Unsung Explorers at the Heart of History
- By thomas on 01-10-17
By: William Carlsen
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The Secret Token
- Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke
- By: Andrew Lawler
- Narrated by: David H. Lawrence XVII
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Story4 out of 5 stars 137
In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue - a "secret token" etched into a tree. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archeologists, and amateur sleuths for 400 years. In The Secret Token, Andrew Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers.
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1 out of 5 stars
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trying to capitalize on race relations
- By Phil on 07-16-19
By: Andrew Lawler