"Sacred Seeds is engaging, richly informative, and a joy to read."—Anna K. Sagal, Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660–1700
"Sacred Seeds is an important book that underscores the ways in which global botanical knowledge and management has the power to shape human cultures and interactions for better or for worse. It is a timely topic in a world of border crossings, monoculture, and dwindling biodiversity among native plants."—Nicole A. Jacobs, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
"The breadth of source material that Sacred Seeds addresses makes the work a tremendously useful resource for anyone studying the European representation of the Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries or seeking to more fully understand the transnational contexts influencing early modern English culture."—Andrea Crow, Renaissance Quarterly
"A hugely enjoyable, ambitious and readable book."—Michael H Whitworth, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture, Merton College
“Edward McLean Test shows how Eurocentrism has impoverished our understanding of the early modern world. . . . Test insists on the contributions of indigenous peoples to European society, showing how their ideas and stories, as well as their plants, changed Europe. He also reveals the power of literature as an agent of historical change.”—Frances E. Dolan, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Davis
“We need a global early modern studies, and this book will help us make one. Test’s wide-ranging and erudite study enriches the environmental humanities through its deep familiarity with English, Spanish, and Native American texts and contexts, as well as his shrewd engagement with the theoretical insights of contemporary ecocriticism. . . . Test’s book will take its place as one of the significant works in creating the fully global, multilingual, and multiethnic understanding of early modernity that we need today.”—Steve Mentz, professor of English at St. John’s University in New York City
