'Starting with a seemingly simple question - How did New Zealand come to be covered in exotic grasses? - Seeds of Empire unfolds a fascinating history with a pertinence far beyond New Zealand. It is the story not just of a country transformed by a 'productivist paradigm' and a belief in a moral landscape that suppressed biodiversity: it also shows how such changes are inseparable from larger transformations in global power and exchange. This interdisciplinary volume, in tracing the movement of people, plants, ideas, technologies and the networks they created, make a convincing case that the British Empire was built on grasses and the sea.' - Professor Richard White, Stanford University