This superb book celebrates over 60 of the world's finest botanic gardens, showcasing the horticultural treasures of each continent.

From the gardens of the Palace of Versailles to Beatrix Potter's garden in the Lake District, from Monet's garden in France to the Tivoli Gardens in Rome, from the Japanese garden in Portland, Oregon, to city gardens in Tokyo, this book is a wide-ranging celebration of all types of gardens around the globe. Including formal French gardens and English landscape gardens; famous botanical gardens and little-known curiosities; Iranian and Persian gardens; grand, country-house gardens and inner-city gardens; Zen gardens, strolling Japanese gardens and Chinese gardens; medicinal gardens and one poison garden; knot gardens and Roman gardens, Amazing Gardens of the World explores a huge variety of the approaches and uses of gardening around the world over millennia. In telling the stories of these places, the book touches on the lives of the people who worked in them, designed them, and owned them--people such as Prince Charles, Capability Brown, Gertrude Jekyll, Edith Wharton, and Agatha Christie. Amazing Gardens of the World not only champions the splendor of the world's most magnificent gardens but also reveals many fascinating stories about the history of these places and the people who created them.

This title unearths the fascinating history of the botanic garden, from the first modern gardens founded in Northern Italy in the 16th century, to the technological achievements of contemporary gardens, such as the Eden Project in Cornwall.

This new study of the fiction of Gene Wolfe, one of the most influential contemporary American science fiction writers, offers a major reinterpretation of Gene Wolfe’s four-volume The Book of the New Sun and its sequel The Urth of the New Sun. After exposing the concealed story at the heart of Wolfe’s magnum opus, Wright adopts a variety of approaches to establish that Wolfe is the designer of an intricate textual labyrinth intended to extend his thematic preoccupations with subjectivity, the unreliability of memory, the manipulation of individuals by social and political systems, and the psychological potency of myth, faith and symbolism into the reading experience.

Chicago and Its Botanic Garden: The Chicago Horticultural Society at 125 is a lushly illustrated and thoughtful history of the Society and its evolution from a producer of monumental flower and botanical shows, through a fallow period, to the opening in 1972 of the Chicago Botanic Garden, a living museum and world leader in horticulture, plant science and conservation, education, and urban agriculture. Author Cathy Jean Maloney combines meticulous scholarship with a flair for storytelling in a narrative that will delight everyone from casual strollers of the grounds to the volunteers, professionals, and scientists who compose the influential society.

Why have the peoples of the world made pleasure gardens, and why have they made them in such different styles? Here, author Rory Stuart explains how all pleasure gardens derive from one of the world's six great gardening traditions — Italian, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese, English flower garden, and the English park — making them the subject of this book. To create this mammoth resource, Stuart traveled around the world, from Buenos Aires to Vancouver, from Seattle to Cape Cod, from Ireland to India, to China, Japan, and Australia, touring and examining the differences in garden styles. Now he explains them here, abetted by beautiful full-color photos, approaching pleasure gardens as works of art and placing them in their historical and cultural context.

Established in 1859, Singapore's Botanic Gardens has served as a park for Singaporeans and visitors, a scientific institution, and a testing ground for tropical plantation crops. Each function has its own story, while the Gardens also fuel an underlying narrative of the juncture of administrative authority and the natural world. Created to help exploit natural resources for the British Empire, the Gardens became contested ground in conflicts involving administrators and scientists that reveal shifting understandings of power, science and nature in Singapore and in Britain. This continued after independence, when the Gardens featured in the "e;greening"e; of the nation-state, and became Singapore's first World Heritage Site. Positioning the Singapore Botanic Gardens alongside the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and gardens in India, Ceylon, Mauritius and the West Indies, this book tells the story of nature's colony-a place where plants were collected, classified and cultivated to change our understanding of the region and world.

World of Plants: Stories of Survival introduces you to 100 fascinating plants, all of which are threatened in the wild, at a time when it is estimated that 40 per cent of the world's plant species are at risk from extinction. Readers are able to discover a host of charismatic plants that contribute to our world's rich biodiversity, from minute mosses to the largest tree on earth. This is a chance to hear the stories of some of the world's rarest and most threatened species in the Living Collection at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.--Back cover.

Discover the lavish beauty and fascinating history of the 40 most important and inspiring botanic gardens from across the globe. From the Renaissance gardens of Italy to the futuristic botanic gardens of Singapore, this gorgeous book tells the story of these unique institutions. It is a history of science and learning, of politics and national interests, of societal concerns and conservation. But, most of all, it is a compelling exploration of the power and possibility of the natural world, that we are still merely scratching the surface of. Expert garden historian Deborah Trentham has selected the world's most important gardens and delves deep into the history of these horticultural institutions - sharing stories of exploration, extraordinary plants and the scientific breakthroughs which have shaped these stunning gardens. Filled with rare and beautiful plants and incredible locations from around the globe - from Norway to Morocco, Kyoto to Kew, Brooklyn to Buenos Aires, and Madrid to Malaysia - this book will transport you to far-flung places and bygone eras, and consider the future of our botanical havens and the natural wonders they protect.