The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
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- ISBN13: 9780375760396
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a
similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the tales of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?Amazon.com Review
Effective in his garden one day, Michael Pollan hit pay dirt in the form of an thought: do plants, he wondered, use humans as much as we use them? While the question is not entirely original, the way Pollan examines this complex coevolution by looking at the natural world from the perspective of plants is unique. The result is a fascinating and engaging look at the right scenery of domestication.
In building his point, Pollan focuses on the relationship between humans and four point plants: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. He uses the history of John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) to illustrate how both the apple’s sweetness and its role in the production of alcoholic cider made it appealing to settlers moving west, thus momentously expanding the plant’s range. He also clarifies how human manipulation of the plant has weakened it, so that “modern apples require more insect killer than any additional food crop.” The tulipomania of 17th-century Holland is a backdrop for his examination of the role the tulip’s beauty played in wildly influencing human behavior to both the benefit and detriment of the plant (the markings that made the tulip so attractive to the Dutch were really caused by a virus). His brilliant discussion of the potato combines a history of the plant with a prime example of how biotechnology is changing our relationship to scenery. As part of his research, Pollan visited the Monsanto company headquarters and planted some of their NewLeaf brand potatoes in his garden–seeds that had been genetically engineered to produce their own insecticide. Though they worked as advertised, he made some startling discoveries, primarily that the NewLeaf plants themselves are registered as a insect killer by the EPA and that federal law prohibits anyone from reaping more than one crop per seed packet. And in a appealing aside, he clarifies how a global desire for consistently perfect French fries contributes to both damaging monoculture and the genetic engineering necessary to support it.
Pollan has read widely on the theme and elegantly combines literary, past, philosophical, and scientific references with engaging anecdotes, giving readers much to ponder while weeding their gardens. –Shawn Carkonen
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I was agreed three months to read this book, and each time I selected it up I threw it down in disgust. Between the none-stop Johnny Appleseed referances to the Collegian’s Guide to Growing Pot, it is incredible I got through it. I am convinced he was once a Columbian drug lord.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
It’s the polar opposite of excellent writing. It’s so familiar, so chatty, so unturgid, and so padded with fluffy stuff it’s unreadable. Even worse than I figured it would be. Oh, well, now i know after wondering all these years.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
In view of the many reviews already out there I need not add much. I read my way through the Apple chapter, which was readable, but reasonably light on facts (heavy on wordy prose).
I tried to read the Tulip chapter but soon felt reasonably uneasy. On page 69 I hit:
“To induce flies into its inner study (there to be digested by waiting enzymes), the pitcher plant has developed a weirdly striated maroon-and-white flower …”. It is hard to imagine that this is the result of mere ignorance, and not to suspect actual intent to misinform people on plants (and botany)?
Maybe some time I will try to read the chapter on Marihuana, which should be mostly about the history of its use and thus safe in the hands of (even) Michael Pollan?
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Pollan’s prose was simply dull and his points were predictable. On the whole I establish that the book lacked inventiveness. Would I buy the book again? To be perfectly honest, no, it came up fleeting of my expectations.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
When I saw this book so well-reviewed , I chose to check it out. As a name who’s read a lot of reflective garden books, I establish Pollan’s prose weak and missing in much real service. He wrote nothing new, nothing that surprised me. I wouldn’t buy this book again or recommend it to others.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5