AHS LIVE: Mexican History of Botany
with Dr. Rick Lopez, author and professor, Amherst College
Thursday, January 29, 2026 from 7-8 p.m. ET
Virtual
$15 for members/$20 for nonmembers
In this talk, Dr. Lopez will focus on the history of botany in Mexico (including the southwestern United States that were previously part of Mexico), drawing from his new book, Rooted in Place: Botany, Indigeneity, and Art in the Construction of Mexican Nature, 1570-1914. Rooted in Place traces historical transformations in the relationship between nature and imagined communities across three interlinked moments in the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the late nineteenth century in Mexico. It is the first major study of the relationship between understandings of nature and the creation of structures of rule within Mexico. The book intentionally weaves between environmental history, history of science, visual culture, and political history.
Rick A. López is Anson D. Morse 1871 Professor of Latin American History and Environmental Studies at Amherst College.