The culture of flowers / Jack Goody.

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1993.

xvii, 462 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. 429-457) and index.

No flowers in Africa? -- In the beginning : gardens and paradise, garlands and sacrifice -- The decline of flower culture in Europe -- Flowers without representation in Islam -- The return of the rose in medieval Western Europe -- Icons and iconoclasm in the Renaissance -- The growth of the market -- The secret Language of flowers in France : specialist knowledge or fictive ethnography? -- The Americanisation of the foreign mind -- The popular culture of flowers in Europe -- Garlands in India : the marigold and the jasmine -- The 'four gentlemen of flowers' in China -- 'Let a hundred flowers bloom' : the New Year in South China -- A distant reading.