Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2025 -

Antimalarial Medicinal Plants, edited by Professor Azamal Husen, is a vital reference work that bridges traditional plant-based malaria treatments with modern scientific validation. The book addresses the growing challenge of drug-resistant parasites in developing nations through meticulous research and scientific rigor, particularly relevant as malaria continues to affect large populations in third-world countries. Organized in two parts, the first section provides a comprehensive overview of antimalarial plants, covering their geographic distribution, biology, genetic improvements, cultivation practices, and sustainable harvesting techniques. The second half features detailed encyclopedia-style entries examining specific plant species' bioactive compounds, therapeutic potential, and pharmacological properties. Rather than simply listing traditional uses, it critically examines and validates claims made by traditional medical practitioners, ensuring safe herbal drug formulation. Husen brings two decades of expertise in plant biology and herbal medicine, enhanced by his work with organizations like the World Bank and Indian Council of Agriculture Research. Part of the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, this reference proves invaluable for researchers, traditional healers, pharmacists, and students in plant sciences and economic botany seeking validated research on natural antimalarial treatments.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals.

Eco-restoration, or ecological restoration, is the process of recovering ecosystems that have been degraded by human activities. In this book, the editor brings together a group of experts who describe bioremediation processes that use living organisms, primarily microorganisms, and plants, to transform harmful pollutants into less toxic or harmless substances. The book begins with a general assessment of the challenges of applying environmental management strategies. Coverage is given to specialized ways of using phytoremediation which employ plants to remove pollutants from soil and water. Microbe-assisted methods using bacteria and fungi to remove pollutants are then discussed. Separate mention is provided from nature-based ways of wastewater remediation. One chapter describes strategies for isolating and characterizing organisms with pollution remediation capabilities. Each chapter describes in detail the biochemistry of the different bioremediation processes, including information about the limitations of bioremediation. Ample figures, data tables, and current primary references are provided in each chapter. A very important aspect of the book is that many remediation strategies described by the authors can be employed by economically developing nations. The book, though a technical compilation of research, is accessible to a general audience.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Culinary historian Ziedrich (independent scholar) offers many things in one package: a family, food, and horticultural history; a tale of westward expansion and the pioneer spirit; and a true picture of the drive and labor that built the United States--an ambitious goal, here accomplished admirably. The Lewelling brothers' tale is a truly American one. Starting in North Carolina, Henderson, John, and Seth steadily made their way west, where they established the first grafted (making hardier stock possible) fruit tree orchards in Oregon, developed the Bing cherry, and originated the Napa Valley wine industry in California. Henderson's contributions to horticulture have largely been forgotten until now. In recent years, he is mostly remembered as the fool who left a good wife to start a free-love colony in Honduras. Ziedrich deftly shows that there was far more to the man, and his contributions to the fruit-growing world deserve memorialization. More illustrations, especially in color, would have lifted this work. Extensive notes, bibliography, and index greatly increase its research value. Highly recommended for American history and horticulture collections.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

Domesticated plant and animal species display traits that have evolved in response to human-associated, selective pressures. The interactions, processes, and environments that shaped these transformations form a compelling system in which to explore eco-evolutionary themes. Spengler (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology) examines the mutualistic relationships between humans and plants, using modern examples from anthropogenic landscapes to understand ancient patterns and the earliest traits of domestication. The text is organized to broadly address the definition of domestication, the evolution of new traits, responses to selective pressures, and the timing of trait evolution. Spengler uses numerous examples from diverse species, regions, and systems to present key micro- and macro-evolutionary themes and terms, such as exaptation, ecological release, founder effects, genetic drift, the Red Queen hypothesis, and developmental plasticity. The volume italicizes formal terms when introduced and clearly defines them, making the text easy to understand, even for a lay reader. This would be an ideal text for an ecology or evolution seminar or a discussion course.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

Seeking to answer the question of whether the garden is a work of art that can be analyzed for its aesthetic properties, David Fenner (philosophy, Univ. of North Florida) and Ethan Fenner (horticulture, Univ. of California) draw on a small corpus of philosophical garden studies and their familiarity with a rich, historical and global tradition to define gardens and discuss their interpretive potential. The creation, maintenance, interpretation, and enjoyment of gardens are of import for three distinct constituencies: (1) "gardenists," more commonly referred to as landscape architects or designers, who conceive of the garden project; (2) gardeners, responsible for physical creation and maintenance of the physical site with its plantings and artifacts; and (3) garden visitors, who enjoy, critique, or analyze the constantly evolving results. The systematic approach of the authors weaves together philosophical methods with horticultural practices, grounding investigative questioning into the tangible factors of garden fabric. Of interest to the landscape scholar, garden theorist, philosopher, and art historian, this study will also trigger reflection on field practices and theoretical underpinnings for the professional or amateur gardener. The wealth of cited sources will encourage further investigation into the complexity of a ubiquitous feature of the environment that is commonly dismissed as unworthy of scholarship.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.