In these lectures, Professor Jim Endersby explores the links between botanic gardens and utopias, both modern, European inventions that embodied a fascination with the future. But utopia, he argues, is not the dream of Eden, nor of a lost golden age; it represents a new idea – that humans might be able to perfect the world for themselves.
These lectures will explore how these ideas were embodied in a range of real and imaginary gardens, each of which embodied ideas of a perfect world.