{"product_id":"the-last-seed-xan-s-chacko-9780295755632","title":"The Last Seed: Botanic Futures and Colonial Legacies","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eSeed vaults promise salvation--yet their frozen futures carry colonial histories of extraction and control\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOften celebrated as humanity's last defense against ecological collapse, seed banks are meant to preserve plant life against extinction. \u003ci\u003eThe Last Seed\u003c\/i\u003e offers a striking reassessment of that promise. Drawing on original fieldwork at major institutions including the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and seed collections in the United States and India, this book opens the closed world of seed banking to critical scrutiny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough feminist science and technology studies and decolonial analysis, Xan Sarah Chacko reveals how contemporary conservation practices remain deeply entangled with the histories of imperial botany and global plant extraction. Seeds preserved in frozen vaults are not merely biological specimens; they are transformed into data, property, and \"genetic resources\" shaped by institutional priorities, legal regimes, and visions of future agriculture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe narrative moves between laboratories, archives, and international seed repositories to show how scientific care, bureaucratic classification, and intellectual property regimes reshape relationships among plants, people, and environments. At stake is more than biodiversity preservation: seed banks participate in a broader project of imagining--and controlling--the future of life on Earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Last Seed\u003c\/i\u003e challenges the comforting image of conservation as neutral stewardship, revealing instead a global system where hope for ecological survival coexists with enduring colonial power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Xan S. Chacko\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0295755636\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780295755632\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Washington Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/03\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 296\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Xan S. Chacko","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48997569495295,"sku":"9780295755632","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-last-seed-xan-s-chacko-9780295755632","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}