Visible Empire. Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hsipanic Enligthtment. 2012. 99 col. figs. 288 p. gr8vo. Hardcover.

Visible Empire explores an important yet virtually unexplored chapter in the history of Spains eighteenth-century Enlightenment. It was then that the countrys Bourbon monarchy, for reasons both commercial and scientific, set out to discover, record, and systematically classify the botanical riches of the New World. This ambitious project resulted in thousands of botanical illustrations of extraordinary originality and quality, many of which are reproduced in this handsome volume for the very first time. Bleichmars approach to these images is imaginatively interdisciplinary, as she examines the circumstances surrounding their production; the artists, native as well as Spanish and creole, involved; together with the thorny aesthetic issues that representing nature necessarily entails. She also situates these images within the broader context of the Enlightenments quest to understand the mysteries of the natural world. Visible Empire is an extraordinary achievement, and definitely one that deserves a wide audience.- Quote from a review by Richard L. Kagan, Johns Hopkins University.