With an interdisciplinary approach to the agri-biopolitical regulation of life that centers on the early to mid-nineteenth-century rise of monoculture and the plantation model, this book turns to key Romantic literature imagined as agricultural novels to propose a new environmental aesthetic built around the “garden” and its plant relations under monoculture in Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia. Organized as a journey around the different garden sites tied to the plantation to trace the failure and attempts at ensuring the plantation's success, the author engages with literary gardens and their material counterparts. From a diverse archive: archaeology and literary studies to Black Geographies, Plant Studies, and burgeoning theories of the garden, it looks to the conuco, creole garden, xochimanque, and the majestic garden as they emerge out of and dialogue with the plantation's monocultural narrative. In doing so, this work addresses (up)rooting: emplacement and belonging, for Afro-descendent, Indigenous, and Upper-Class Creole peoples.

Niall Peach is visiting assistant professor of Spanish and affiliate of the School of Environment and Sustainability at University of Cincinnati.