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Rosa Luxemburg's Herbarium: Radical Ecology and the Global Plantation
Not yet published
Expected 6 Oct 26Better known for her revolutionary politics, Rosa Luxemburg was also an avid botanist. Between 1913-1918, even while incarcerated in Poland and Germany for her activism, Luxemburg collected plants sent to her by friends and found in the prison grounds. With care and expertise, she pressed and annotated close to 400 varieties of leaves and flowers.
This lavishly illustrated study, the first of its kind, brings together pages from Luxemburg’s herbarium, personal letters that provide rich detail about her fascination with plants, and a discussion of her ecological critique of colonial capitalism.
Through the lens of the herbarium, Claudia Horn, who has written extensively on environmental justice and natural resources, focuses on the connections between the study of flora, the naturalist movement, and plantation slave labor, showing that decolonization of botany and environmentalism is both possible and necessary.
This lavishly illustrated study, the first of its kind, brings together pages from Luxemburg’s herbarium, personal letters that provide rich detail about her fascination with plants, and a discussion of her ecological critique of colonial capitalism.
Through the lens of the herbarium, Claudia Horn, who has written extensively on environmental justice and natural resources, focuses on the connections between the study of flora, the naturalist movement, and plantation slave labor, showing that decolonization of botany and environmentalism is both possible and necessary.
224 pages, Paperback
Expected publication October 6, 2026
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