Ethnobotanists Cox and Balick share two decades of experience living with the indigenous peoples of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia, conducting fieldwork in the study of how people use plants. The result of their efforts details a story of human culture in relationship to the plants they have traditionally used for medicinal, recreational, and ornamental purposes. This legacy continues today in the form of pharmacology research, aided by the fields of anthropology and botany. The authors' cautionary admonition against the destruction of native communities and environments draws authority from their scientific, but passionate engagement with the subject.

They further argue that human cultural origins are woven with plants: examining the prehistoric use and gathering of plants by hunter-gatherers to modern times, this examines important connections between indigenous peoples' development and concurrent plant discoveries.

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