“In <i>Gathering Medicines</i>, Farquhar and Lai offer a remarkably wide range of observations and reflections on the anthropology and history of medicine as a living social practice in southern China. They weave into their discussion a fascinating array of life histories and object narratives, a rich assortment of institutional sites and both textual and nonliterate practices, and an abundance of self-critical reflections on methodology and meaning. This is a major, pathbreaking piece of scholarship, indicative of the highest-quality research and analysis.”

David Arnold, University of Warwick

“<i>Gathering Medicines</i> is an ethnography of epistemology at its best. Unpacking words and things, collecting and feeling plants, the authors thread relentlessly through depth and density to craft their book, a multidimensional object at its core.”

Marisol de la Cadena, University of California, Davis

“Experienced anthropologists Farquhar and Lai have written a philosophically sophisticated ethnography of today’s China caught in the act of constructing ‘minority nationality medicines,’ a set of complex, always changing, social, and epistemological things.”

Nathan Sivin, University of Pennsylvania