Enlightenment botany was replete with sexual symbolism -- to the extent that many botanical textbooks were widely considered pornographic. Carl Linnaeus's controversial new system for classifying plants based on their sexual characteristics, as well as his use of language resonating with erotic allusions, provoked intense public debate over the morality of botanical study. And the renowned Tahitian exploits of Joseph Banks -- whose trousers were reportedly stolen while he was inside the tent of Queen Oberea of Tahiti -- reinforced scandalous associations with the field. Yet Linnaeus and Banks became powerful political and scientific figures who were able to promote botanical exploration alongside the exploitation of territories, peoples, and natural resources. Sex, Botany, and Empire explores the entwined destinies of these two men and how their influence served both science and imperialism. Patricia Fara reveals how Enlightenment botany, under the veil of rationality, manifested a drive to conquer, subdue, and deflower -- all in the name of British empire. Linnaeus trained his traveling disciples in a double mission -- to bring back specimens for the benefit of the Swedish economy and to spread the gospel of Linnaean taxonomy. Based in London at the hub of an international exchange and correspondence network, Banks ensured that Linnaeus's ideas became established throughout the world. As the president of the Royal Society for more than forty years, Banks revolutionized British science, and his innovations placed science at the heart of trade and politics. He made it a policy to collect and control resources not only for the sake of knowledge but also for the advancement of the empire. Although Linnaeus is often celebrated as modern botany's true founder, Banks has had a greater long-term impact. It was Banks who ensured that science and imperialism flourished together, and it was he who first forged the interdependent relationship between scientific inquiry and the state that endures to this day.

法拉，英國科學史傢，供職於劍橋大學剋萊爾學院。本科攻讀物理專業，畢業於牛津大學。後轉嚮科學史專業，在倫敦帝國學院得到博士學位。法拉善長分析科學史中肖像畫等藝術品的作用，對啓濛運動時期英格蘭的科學，以及婦女在科學發展中的作用進行瞭深刻的研究。主要作品有《無名的科學傢：科學 中的偉大女性》（Scientists Anonymous: Great Stories of Women in Science）、《緻命的吸引力：啓濛運動時期的磁學奧秘》（Fatal Attraction: Magnetic Mysteries of the Enlightenment）、《科學：四韆年的曆史》（Science: A Four Thousand Year History）等書。最新作品為《伊拉斯謨·達爾文：性、科學和機緣》（Erasmus Darwin: Sex, Science, and Serendipity）。

譯者介紹：

李猛，北京大學哲學博士，現為廈門大學馬剋思主義學院助理教授，主要研究方嚮為英國科學史、博物學文化。