Book summary

This fast-paced science account uncovers an ethical footnote in botanical history along with the culture that shielded it from public view. When distinguished, yet unpopular professor John Heslop Harrison documented several new species of flora on the Isle of Rum in the 1940s--with claims that these flora supported a different view of the glaciation process--his colleagues were suspicious. John Raven, a Cambridge scholar and amateur botanist, investigated and eventually refuted most of Harrison's research, while emphasizing Harrison's working-class upbringing. This book documents Raven's attempts to disprove Harrison's findings, the nature of classism in British culture, and the ways in which academia strives to protect its own. A New York Times choice for one of the best gardening books of 2000.

Media reviews

"...Karl Sabbagh, an English author and producer of science programs for BBC Television, has unearthed an intriguing story about the politics of science. It's a saga with dueling protagonists, outraged charges and countercharges, motivations shrouded in mystery. Yet it's a saga without a proper conclusion, ebbing away in a very low-key, very British understatement."