Sources and Links
Through collaboration with libraries, archives and museums, this section provides direct access to relevant primary sources and features fascinating stories about individual items. Please share your knowledge of particular sources with us.
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Featured resource
Experiments in Producing Useful Commodities from the Nests of Insects in IndiaJohn O'Brien on British attempts to utilise insect nests for economic purposes in India.
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Featured resource
Investigation into the India-rubber Trees of Brazil, 1877John O’Brien on a primary source featuring a nineteenth century expedition from British India to Brazil and the Amazon.
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Reports on the Hindu Method of Making SugarAn eighteenth century report on producing sugar and jaggery in India.
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A Colony in CrisisPrimary sources relating to the grain shortage of 1789 in colonial Saint-Domingue.
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Economic Botany Collection at KewThis fascinating collection of over 85,000 objects includes historic specimens and artefacts relating to all plants amenable to being developed as commodities that were collected by naturalists and scientists from different parts of the world from the mid-nineteenth century.
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Botany in British India Material - A British Library collectionBotanical gardens in India; plant-collecting expeditions to Assam, the Coromandel Coast and the Spice Islands; and the use of plants as foodstuffs, industrial products and medicines.