Empire's Nature: Mark Catesby's New World Vision

Completed in 1747, Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was the first major illustrated publication on the flora and fauna of Britain's American colonies. Inspired by a major traveling exhibition of Catesby's watercolor drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, this collection of interdisciplinary essays considers Catesby's endeavors as a naturalist-artist, scientific explorer, experimental horticulturist, ornamental gardener, and early environmental thinker in terms of the interests held by the various overlapping communities in which he functioned - particulary as those interests related to the British colonial enterprise.