From 'Miasmic Wilderness' to 'Global Camphor': Decoding Botanical DNA and Forest Governance Algorithms in the 'Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles'
Here’s a question I couldn’t shake: How does a tree become a business that changes the world? I spent three days digging through the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles: Natural History Volume. I went in expecting a list of native plants. What I found was something else entirely. This wasn’t a botanical catalog. It was a playbook for how a small island at the edge of the world used its trees to break into the global market. ...