Introduction

Before looking at how humans and plants have interacted through history, the chapter frames the whole subject as economic botany — the study of the relationship between people and the plants that matter economically to them. This field examines the many ways humans put plants to use: as food, as medicine, and for countless other everyday needs. Because that relationship touches so many parts of human life, economic botany naturally overlaps with a range of established disciplines — agronomy, anthropology, archaeology, chemistry, and trade and commerce all contribute to understanding it.