23 March 2026
New book examines little-known works of celebrated revolutionary
A new book authored by a King’s College London academic sheds light on the botanical studies and ecological perspective of celebrated revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg.
Rosa Luxemburg's Herbarium: Radical Ecology and the Global Plantation, authored by Dr Claudia Horn, presents the first-ever translation of Luxemburg's original plant collection.
Better known for her political activism and political economy analysis, Luxemburg was also a dedicated botanist. Between 1913 and 1918, even while incarcerated in German and Polish prisons, she carefully pressed and annotated nearly 400 varieties of leaves and flowers. Many of these were gathered directly from prison grounds or sent in the post by friends. Dr Horn’s book combines pages from Luxemburg’s herbarium with intimate prison letters.
Dr Horn, a lecturer in political economy with the Department of European and International Studies, also draws on the herbarium to explore Luxemburg's ecological critique of colonial capitalism. The study draws connections between the global naturalist movement and plantation slave labour, arguing for the necessity of decolonising both botany and environmentalism.
Published by OR Books, you can purchase a copy of Rosa Luxemburg's Herbarium Radical Ecology and the Global Plantation at the link here.
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Lecturer in International Political Economy Education