Plants and Politics in Padua During the Age of Revolution, 1820 - 1888. 2022. (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology). 13 (1 col.) figs. XIII, 300 p. gr8vo. Hardcover.

This book highlights the close interactions between plants, plant knowledge, politics, and social life in Padua during the age of revolution. It explores the lives and thoughts of two brothers, the lawyer Andrea Meneghini and the botanist Giuseppe Meneghini, illustrating the unspoken dreams of progress and a new social order, but also sheds light on the ambiguous relationship between the Paduan elite and Austrian rule before the 1848 revolution. A closer look at park designs, gardening associations and networks, flower exhibitions, agricultural societies, organicist metaphors, and botanical research on the organization of living bodies opens up unexpected parallels between actors and ideas of two apparently distant areas: botany and political economy.

Contents: Introduction/ Padua’s Networks/ Plants and the Social Ascent of the Meneghini Family/ Garden Politics/ Growing Up in a Progressive Environment/ Organization, Cooperation, and Progress in Padua’s Political Economy/ Progress, Evolution, and Cellular Constitution/ The Sweeping Power of Horticulture/ Cultivating Land and People/ Revolutions and Their Failures/ Conclusion.