Includes bibliographical references.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction -- Unit One. The merger of botany, anthropology, demography and economics -- Classification, structure and reproduction of the angiosperms -- Evolution, coevolution and the angiosperms -- Unit Two. Our agricultural beginnings -- Historical agriculture -- Unit Three. The seeds of civilization : Wheat, corn, rice and other grains -- Fibers, forestry products, and tobacco -- Fruits, roots and vegetables -- The increasingly important legumes and nuts -- The recent romances of sugar and latex -- The long romance of spices and perfumes -- Beverages -- Unit Four. Methods in ethnobotanical investigation -- Peasant markets -- Psychedelics, shamanism and healing -- Ethnic nutrition -- Unit Five. The green revolution -- Mechanized agriculture : Its econenergetics and environmental impacts -- Monoculture and the genetic future of major crops -- Mariculture : Seaweeds, phytoplankton and the myth of food from the sea -- Innovation in meeting world food demands -- Famine 1984? Nutritional problems in the developed and developing countries.