What is it about?
This chapter looks at how students in Portugal and Spain were taught about plants in the 18th and 19th centuries. It focuses on two major universities—Coimbra and Salamanca—and shows how learning about plants became part of teaching medicine, science, and agriculture. The goal was to use natural resources, like plants, to improve farming, health, and the economy. By studying university teaching materials, this research explains how knowledge of nature was organized and why it mattered for society. It also shows how these early efforts to control and use nature are connected to today’s environmental challenges.
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Why is it important?
This chapter is one of the first studies to connect 18th- and 19th-century university reforms in Portugal and Spain to current debates about the environment and the Anthropocene. It shows how early teaching about plants was shaped by economic and political goals—especially the drive to use nature as a resource. By analyzing historical study plans and university records, this work highlights how education helped structure the human relationship with nature in ways that still affect us today. This historical lens adds depth to environmental discussions and offers new insight into the roots of today’s ecological challenges.
Perspectives
Writing this chapter was especially meaningful for me because it allowed me to connect my research on university reforms with wider questions about our relationship with nature. As a historian, I’m fascinated by how ideas about plants and the natural world were taught in the past—and how that shaped the way societies used (and sometimes exploited) their environments. I hope this piece shows that historical university curricula are not just academic relics—they reveal how knowledge, policy, and nature have always been closely connected. I would be glad if this chapter sparks new conversations between historians, educators, and environmental thinkers.
Carlos Alves
Universidade de Coimbra
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: How to Coexist: the Teaching of the Plant Kingdom at the Universities of Coimbra and Salamanca (XVIII–XIX), May 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004721777_004.
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