Searching for Order

Previously published as The Naming of Names, this new royal trade paperback edition positions the book as a traditional history book, not an illustrated gardening book. The narrative focus is very much on the people who ordered the world of plants, less so than the plants themselves Two full-colour plate sections (16 pages in total) retain the beautiful iillustrations that made the original edition so desirable The Tulip sold nearly 200,000 copies in the UK and US alone

The exhilarating history of how plants got their names, previously published as The Naming of Names, from the author of the worldwide bestseller The TulipSearching for Order traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe. Redefining man's relationship with nature was an important feature of the Renaissance. But in a world full of plagues and poisons, there was also a practical need to name and recognise different plants: most medicines were made from plant extracts. Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, travelling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World. In Athens, Aristotle's pupil, Theophrastus, is the first man ever to write a book about plants. What should these things properly be called, he asks. How can we sort and order them? The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Gradually, over a long period in Europe, plants assumed identities and acquired names. Artists painted the first pictures of them. Plants acquired the two-part names that show how they are related to other plants. But who began all this work, and how was it done? Searching for Order gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.