Publication Date:May 28, 2002 Availability:Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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ISBN13: 9780375760396
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Condition: New
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Amazon.com Review Working in his garden one day, Michael Pollan hit pay dirt in the form of an idea: 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 true nature of domestication.
In making his point, Pollan focuses on the relationship between humans and four specific 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 greatly expanding the plant's range. He also explains how human manipulation of the plant has weakened it, so that "modern apples require more pesticide than any other 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 actually caused by a virus). His excellent discussion of the potato combines a history of the plant with a prime example of how biotechnology is changing our relationship to nature. 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 pesticide by the EPA and that federal law prohibits anyone from reaping more than one crop per seed packet. And in a interesting aside, he explains 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 subject and elegantly combines literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific references with engaging anecdotes, giving readers much to ponder while weeding their gardens. --Shawn Carkonen
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 stories 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?
StrangeJuly 26, 2010 Laura(NJ) 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is well written but a bit strange. Mr. Pollen bases his premise that plants manipulate mankind into shaping their future because of man's 4 desires. My son had to read it for college, so I picked it up. It is quite a "green" book with lots of progressive ideas.
informative but repetitiveJune 23, 2010 J. MacCormack(North Carolina, USA) Wonderful book to sit down to from time to time and garner a deeper understanding of the history behind the Apple, Tulip, Cannibas and Potato -- it was like finding out that some of our most 'mundane' plants are actually remarkable. The premise behind the book intrigues too -- that plants can attract or manipulate humans just like hummingbirds or bees. What I felt was the downside to the book was the author's regular repetition of certain assertions, even some of the same stories. As some of the chapters dragged on, I felt like he was saying the same things over and over again, just with different words and a different anecdote. What he said in 300 pages could probably have been said in 200 ... maybe less. Looks like he could have used a stronger editor.
needs to be a bit more careful...June 18, 2010 Snowy Owl Pollan's intricate look at our quest for sweetness, intoxication, beauty and practicality through plants lends us a wealth of information on our relationship with nature. Investigation through experiment, interviews and research reveals much of the unexpected but needed information- on current practices in mainstream agriculture for example. The style he presents his topics doesn't exactly fulfill the opinions which he eventually reaches at the conclusion of the chapter- such as that intoxication might bring us in closer communion to nature or that its better and safer to go with bio-diversity in raising a food supply (yet he is willing to serve genetically altered potato salad). In Pollan's case, there seems to be transparency of a comedy of errors, a looseness of respect that show up immediately in the first chapter on apples. He is pretty sure that all apple trees are now native to America or should be labeled so because of their rapid acculturation and revolutionary adaptability. (So, if a plant likes American soil it should be called native?) He's also positive that the healthy reputation of apples was not known or talked about until the beginning of the early 20th century as a PR campaign to boost the validity of apple consumption (to counter prohibitionist movement aimed at hard cider) As Ralph Austen noted (among others) that:
"it will beggar a physitian to live where cider and perry are of general use" Mr. Austen wrote this in the year 1653.
Good read, but not Pollan's best work....June 5, 2010 D. Porter(UT USA) Having read and enjoyed Pollan's more recent works, I looked forward to reading this one. While it was a worthwhile read, I did not find it as informative or enjoyable as his other books.
The book tells the story from the point of view of the garden rather than of the gardener. Pollan speaks for 4 plants (apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes) that have quite successfully recruited another species (us) to spread their genes across the globe. Historically informative (who knew that Johnny Appleseed was more interested in Apple Jack than Apple Pie), at times humorous (Pollan's own brief career as a cannabis grower is hilarious), and even insightful; Pollan is certainly a gifted author telling an interesting story. I believe I would have enjoyed it more had I not already read Pollan's other books.
Plant's-Eye ViewJune 1, 2010 M. K. Parker(Conway, Arkansas) Histories that take us from the present state of things back to a long-forgotten (or never known) beginning, slowly unfolding each chapter of the story, captivate our imagination the same way stories about the day we were born command our interest. What, in terms of storytelling, could possibly be better than traipsing through history to uncover origins? What is more interesting than answering questions like "where did it come from," "how did we get here," "what did people once think?" What is more compelling than discovering the past?
Discovering the past from another perspective.
That is what Michael Pollan achieves in "The Botany of Desire." He crafts for us the histories of the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato as each developed a relationship with humans. Pollan tells us about the plants themselves and follows them from their early encounters with humans to the present day when humans often take them for granted. That is, Pollan tells us about a time *before* Golden Delicious apples and he tells us about the apple's journey to become what it is today. And the tulip's, and marijuana's, and the potato's. Pollan weaves these histories for us in terms of our desires and the desire each plant fulfills. Sweetness. Beauty. Intoxication. Control. When we think about our relationships with these plants (or their relationships with us) in terms of our desires, our human demands made manifest upon the world, the story becomes more than it was at first glance. Our tendency toward vanity takes us along with Pollan as he implies the enigmatic question: what is behind our desire? And, ultimately, what does it mean to be human?
And it gets better.
Pollan incorporates the myths of Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus and delves into the ancient Greek concepts of abandon, control and balance of the two. (By the way, of course, no discussion of Dionysus and Apollo is complete without extensive quotes from their no. 1 fan, Friedrich Neitzsche, which Pollan dutifully includes.) Pollan weaves the Dionysian/Apollonian thread throughout this work, and in doing so, both anchors and liberates his discussion through myth.
In the end, Pollan offers us a history of four plants in terms of human desire and myth. He gives us the facts, he gives us the history and he traces the origins. But he also weaves a mythology and hints at the mystery underlying it all. Like all long-term, intimate relationships, that of humanity and these plants is, ultimately, rife with betrayal, turmoil, passion, normalcy, love and desire. We almost certainly will never know the plants' side of the story (and it is human-centric for us to think of them in our terms). Perhaps, though, we come closest to thinking about it through Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire."
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